Bl:oodswap: Guess Who's Getting a Spinoff?
by Great Pikmin Fan
Summary: AU, A pretty odd twist on the bloodswap concept. A thirteenshot where it seems like the original trolls have been replaced by a Nepeta with the same blood color. Then things get weird. Fair warning that this isn't so much focused on Alternia or anything as much as it is a strange story that's based on taking a "joke idea" seriously.
1. One Name Ten Times

**Bl:oodswap: Guess Who's Getting a Spinoff?**

 **Chapter 1: One Name Ten Times**

 **Beginning AN:**

This is pretty much what happens when you take a joke idea way too seriously.

I was in a big sort of writer's block. Outside of _A Slash of Mortality_ , pretty much all of my plans have been going along slowly ( _Fox Crew_ , _360 Degree Duck_ ) or I haven't been bothered to write much of anything.

Then Nepetasprite happened and even though later on Davepetasprite happened before I finished reading that update I was thinking, "If Nepeta just gets prototyped (again if you count Fefetasprite) period then I'll do something." And that something was "start season seven of _Housestuck Hurrcain Crconikals_ " but I didn't feel like going back into HHC overload. (I did eventually, as if you look you'll find that HHC season seven and the fic as a whole is finished.) So I got yet another _Homestuck_ AU. This is like... the fifth idea or something I started drafting a chapter of, but probably won't go anywhere thanks to my increasing dislike for Act 6 (and no, not much so far has changed my mind. No, Nepeta's revival hasn't either, especially if Davepetasprite is just going to be written off as the anti-Lord English army being the "OTHER other only secret weapon to kill him"). But since I have more of something planned out for this, as well as my hard-set "new standards" of just thirteen chapters, maybe this will go somewhere? Plus, I've always toyed around with the "grand return" of a certain set of characters from _Sweet Jade and Hella John_ way back, though obviously with some considerable redesign.

Normally I don't just pump out mirrors left and right, but this... might be an exception. Let's just say there's a lot of arrows here. Speaking of which, in case the title doesn't display properly because of the website's markup, there's a colon after the letter "L" and a less than arrow after the second "O." You know, kind of like a Nepeta emoticon.

* * *

\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG] -  
AA: hi  
AA: sorry  
\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] sent turntechGodhead [TG] file "ripjohn" -  
\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] ceased trolling turntechGodhead [TG] -

\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] -  
AA: sorry  
\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] sent tentacleTherapist [TT] file "ripjohn" -  
\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] ceased trolling tentacleTherapist -

\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] began trolling gardenGnostic [GG] -  
AA: sorry  
\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] sent gardenGnostic file "ripjohn" -  
AA: you know just send it to your other friends at this point they shouldnt have to listen to me  
AA: except roxy  
\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] ceased trolling gardenGnostic [GG] -

* * *

 **(Three Years Ago, From Their Perspective)**

"Go away please!" She yelled out the hive window. "I'm not a saver! How many times do I have to tell you that?"

Three trolls outside of the hive wasn't that bad as far as it usually goes. Still, fairly annoying.

Nepeta thought that the bright indigo flowing through her veins would be enough to scare this particular crowd off - a rust blood, a bronze blood, and that same guy who keeps hiding his color - and this isn't even factoring her unusually high strength.

"PIPE OPEN YOUR AUDIO CANNALS FOR ONE SECOND!" The latter of the crowd members stomped his foot against the ground, something especially notable with how he towered over the other two. "I AM BY NO MEANS AND AFFILIATED WITH THIS CULT _AND SHOULD NOT BE MISTAKEN OTHERWISE_! IF YOU GIVE ME TEN SECONDS ALONE TO EXPLAIN MYSELF-"

She made a deliberately loud "HMMM..." with a hand put to her chin, looking at the floor. Making the other two crowd-members gasp, Nepeta finally stepped from the window and opened her hive's front door.

"INDIGO HAS LISTENED, THE UNITY HAS BEGUN!" They chanted. "THE DISCIPLE DESCENDANTS ARE ALL AFOOT!"

All the while, Mr. Anon-blood face-palmed. Which made it more surprising to him when a tremor shook the cliffsite around them thanks to failing to see Nepeta punching the rock by it. A massive crack sprung to existance dangerously close to the triad, which was enough to get the other two kids to back off. But not the gray-signed boy.

He lept.

Just when the entire foundation to the hive began its slid towards the canyon and dangerously close to its neighbor, this guy kept a firm footing on the piece of earth- or piece of alternia. Then he lifted his head to give a look at Nepeta. Who had just stepped back into her house, pressed a button, and sighed before his view was blocked by several metal gates slamming shut.

Outside the hive and below, the boy known as Karkat unfolded the paper yet again, this time striking out the troll dressed in indigo. It was fairly difficult for any outsider to decipher who was who - basically being gray and orange blobs in black and whatever clothing. But the important thing was that another option was down, leaving only three left. One of them was up this very cliff. Good enough.

Inside, her name was Nepeta Leijon, and she really needs to get this hive into Move Mode yet again.

Outside and above, the window to a neighboring house opened, and the head and hands of a similarly-faced troll shot out.

" _Keep it down._ " She said.

* * *

She closed the door with a heavy sigh. It was fun having another One as her neighbor, but thanks to the annoying crowd that was simply too good to be true. A ding on the computer alerted her. Probably the last message as neighbors.

\- calicosTail [CT] began trolling adorabloodthirsyGrip [AG] -  
CT: :% hey  
CT: :% that karkat guy is coming to your hive  
CT: :% im putting my hive on move mode again  
CT: :% sorry but neighpurring with another one of my own cant work out  
AG: ::::8 yeah i see him clim8ing his way up  
AG: ::::8 purrsistent little guy  
AG: ::::8 you think i can purrsuade him away like i do with my coats?  
CT: :% why would you manipulate those cute coats you have?  
AG: ::::8 i meant cults sorry  
CT: :% from what the others told me when he goes away he never bothers them again  
CT: :% do you ever sometimes...  
CT: :% feel sorry for him?  
AG: ::::8 nope  
CT: :% why not?  
CT: :% i mean he always goes through so much to track each of us down and he accepts it when each of us defeat him so easily  
CT: :% i would listen to what he wants but the thought of being alone with a stranger is  
CT: :% well you know what they say about the food chain here on alternia!  
AG: ::::8 yeah your 8ack is at the 8ottom while your front is at the top  
CT: :% i know i cant wait until i meowve out  
CT: :% i mean i know its easier to hide when you have the entire galaxy  
CT: :% and i could live a quiet life toying around in a distant forest  
CT: :% as a nudist too  
AG: ::::8 i know what you mean i would 8e one too 8ut damn those paparazzi  
AG: ::::8 i mean nakedist or whatever  
AG: ::::8 im not a forest girl anymore  
AG: XXXX8 im sooooooooo spoiled i know  
CT: :% hey you never answered my question!  
CT: :% that creepy stalker guy? why dont you feel a little pity for him?  
AG: ::::8 8ecause he kind of looks like one of those hopeless geeks?  
AG: ::::8 i mean why does he even need to hide his 8lood color anyway who even does that in the adult empire let alone alternia  
AG: ::::8 i dont understand why when he visits you youre suddenly noticing him and painting a different picture of him!  
AG: ::::8 he never seemed any... different to me!  
CT: :% well okay thats your opinion i guess  
AG: ::::8 okay okay ill tell you what  
AG: ::::8 if/when he comes over to my hive and isnt killed in the climb  
AG: ::::8 ill let him in and see what the 8ig deal is  
AG: ::::8 chances are i can just purrsuade him if he really wants to kill or capture us  
AG: ::::8 fur you!  
CT: :% so you dont want me to swat him off the cliff with my hives legs?  
AG: ::::8 nah but dont help him up either  
AG: ::::8 i like to think of this right now as kind of my me-time?  
\- adorabloodthirstyGrip [AG] ceased trolling calicosTail [CT] -

Excuse me. That other her's name was unofficially _Indigo_ Nepeta Leijon. This here is _Cobalt_ Nepeta Leijon.

And she was still recovering from being dragged away from the latest hunt result.

This subsided once she casually purrsuaded her own crowd to back off. A whopping one person. She was about to take a bite when her computer once again beeped. Damn. Oh well, wouldn't be the first time she ate at the desk.

\- twinAwesomepaws [TA] began trolling adorabloodthirstyGip [AG] -  
TA: :22 *the 2treet-2talker2 2en2es tingle2 once again*  
TA: :22 *the fire2torm of rock2 ha2 drawn too near*  
TA: :22 *tonight in fact*  
AG: ::::8 oh no  
AG: ::::8 ((wait i keep forgetting is this a serious vision you have or a roleplay))  
TA: :22 dead 2eriou2  
TA: :22 well 2omehow make it out alive  
TA: :22 i cant figure out how though it2 weird  
TA: :22 but everyone who i2nt a One will die  
AG: ::::8 weird sentence when you think a8out it  
TA: :22 it i2!  
TA: :22 anyway ju2t um..  
TA: :22 let it come to you beclaw2 it2 the de2tiny in all of u2?  
AG: ::::8 good point  
AG: ::::8 anyway i have a lunch to get to  
AG: ::::8 8ye unless something IMPORTANT comes up  
AG: ::::8 since really...  
AG: ::::8 thats just the same shit as always and im kind of sick of it  
\- adorabloodthirstyGrip [AG]'s computer faced an error and was forced to shut down -

Shit! _Again!_

That's the third time this week blood spurted from the latest kill horde and messed up the keyboard!

Cobalt Nepeta shrugged. She loved being kinda-rich.

* * *

Rude. That was rude.

Her name was Gold Nepeta Leijon, continuing this story's tradition of fucking around with theme numbering and introductions, and that was... a bit of a swerve.

She sighed. Just wanted to be _helpful._

Being one of the few of her caste with the nasty kind of telekinesis involving all the fucking eye lasers and shit (that's its common if unofficial name, not just something Vriska swore once in canon), she was the only known One to get prophet after prophet told to her ears. A daily reminder of the apocalypse out there.

Not common among her kind was the paint splattered around her stem. Okay, it was blood. Unlike the other Ones, she only hunted beasts with red or blue blood to help with what the acursed vision two-fold was demanding. Then purple, for a reason that will be explained later. Scripts and stories were mostly what was on the walls, and said blue-red color was used for the stuff that was _serious_. An in-joke between her and the other Ones was "Purple-serious." This is something none of their close friends got. Mostly due to the lack of them.

There were exactly two prophecies that weren't full of death and gloom which came to her when she slept in her uniquely-divided recuperacoon. One: All the "main" Ones won't meet up until they've hit another planet, which at least hints at escaping Alternia and going out to the stars. Two: They can finally meet other friends outside of other Ones once on that quest. So, chances are today was the day (thinking of anything otherwise made her shudder), and things might go uphill.

Gold Nepeta's next action after re-thinking everything was to review the tales plastered around. Yep, it _really_ took some effort to those beasts up the side, and even more to mask and hide the scent. She flexed her fingers out at the sight of all the self-inserty tales of finding love.

But that was top-level classified. Strange how for such the effort, this was kept locked away, but hey. Red marked one way a tale would go, blue marked the other. Purple, again, was Purple-serious.

Hey, that was a tour of the hive. Not much when it comes to decoration but it's something. There's also the computer. She should probably let someone else know. That last conversation did give the thought of getting the real assholes out of the way first.

\- twinAwesomepaws [TA] began trolling catfishCuller [CC] -  
TA: :22 2o tonight i2 the night!  
TA: :22 um i feel 2orry for the other troll2 maybe 2ince i think theyll all die!  
TA: :22 what do you think?  
CC: :I I said stop fucking bothering me YOU CHALLENGING PIECE!  
TA: :22 jeez  
CC: :I so dId you ever come up wIth somethIng meanIngful to say to me?  
CC: :I I told you  
CC: :I I told you I told you I told you I told you I told you I told you I told you I told you I told you  
CC: :I eIther learn to be lIke rust or fuck off  
CC: :I I should put you In my spam pIle I mean god  
\- catfishCuller [CC] ceased trolling twinAwesomepaws [TA] -

* * *

Continuing the tradition, let's now see this assho-

Oh.

Oh god.

Between the floating animal corpses around the hive's under-sea room, the cracked and bent cages, a bruised and battered tentacle rushing away from the window, and... the girl herself... she had nothing but a one-piece swimsuit with a fuchsia leo sign on it, but what was eye-brow raising was that the crotch of it... _needs_ to be covered up. Trust me on this one. Let's just use pixellation as the censorship method and call it a day.

We should probably procrastinate her introduction just a little bit, and get to someone else. Someone like... _where's the dart board..._ ah, right.

* * *

 **(Perfect)**

Her name was Teal Nepeta Leijon, and she was just finishing up another run through the forest.

The run had no purpose at all - saying exercise would be a huge stretch, that was just a side-benefit. The main benefit... yeah, that's the question. But it definitely wasn't for exercise.

A highly rare number of benefits to her - probably 101% tied to her lusus, probably not - were those extra heightened senses. Seemingly her trademark Ability (every One this little group of ten knew seemed to have it) was that the faintest sights and softest whispers could be detected by her. At least, according to other people. It was kind of hard judging how relatively good one's senses are without some comparison. Said comparison was usually her next destination in short time.

Said destination did not count this messaging.

\- adorabloodthirstyGrip [AG] began trolling gnawingCatwoodsmonster [GC] -  
AG: ::::8 hey that karkat guy just came to my hive  
AG: ::::8 he says the galaxys gonna end and fuchsias lusus has something to do with it and this code he found looking around is the only way to escape the apocalyse  
AG: ::::8 well that MIGHT not 8e how it completely goes 8ut he wants me to send this code to as many Ones as possi8le  
GC: :6 okay  
AG: ::::8 he says he wants to get our trust 8y doing a specific "test run" in some place 8ut theres no way in hell im gonna jump to the game right away  
AG: ::::8 wait a minute  
AG: ::::8 i told you a8out the apocalypse and how it takes a CODE to save us and your reaction is just "okay?"  
GC: :6 well yeah 1ts sort of 6oring and tough 1n here  
GC: :6 1 guess some6odys doomsday mach1ne f1nally worked and karkat just knew whoever 1t 1s  
AG: ::::8 ...whatever  
GC: :6 and 1 th1nk your "protect1on mach1nes" are st1ll fa1l1ng 1f thats the case  
AG: ::::8 ...WHATEVER  
AG: ::::8 he says this game needs a "client" and a "server" and the rest run will 8e the client  
AG: ::::8 you think... it would help... if youre the server?  
AG: ::::8 i mean you live like kilometers no MEGAmeters away i dont see how the code will hurt you  
GC: :6 aw 1 th1nk a game sav1ng the world would 6e fun!  
AG: ::::8 ...he says that alternia might not 8e a8le to 8e saved  
AG: ::::8 were not gonna STOP the end were just gonna ESCAPE it  
AG: ::::8 anyway im gonna spread the news and the file to everyone else 8ut you make sure rust gets the code and give her a computer to use or something  
GC: :6 1m already on 1t!  
AG: ::::8 im sending you the game file right now  
AG: ::::8 karkats downloading it to some kind of cave thing that looks empty  
AG: ::::8 when its loaded you should see parts of the cave  
AG: ::::8 um... and just drop stuff in  
AG: ::::8 he says theres someone in there that might work everything else out  
AG: ::::8 well anyway youre on your own i still need to finish the last bits of this meal  
AG: ::::8 see ya  
\- adorabloodthirstyGrip [AG] ceased trolling gnawingCatwoodsmonster [GC] -

Right! Off to see that maroon-blooded fellow! But first...

* * *

 **(Eons Later, into Another Universe...)**

\- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering arsenicCatnip [AC] -  
TG: olive nepeta get your ass over here  
TG: were going back  
TG: im sorry but calling your plan a mistake is a huge understatement  
TG: hanksprite should have never happened  
AC: :33 im already almost behind you  
TG: yeah i cant find any way to bring anybody back i think its safe to say this timeline is fucked  
TG: im hoping hanksprite was the divergence point because  
TG: well  
TG: the thought of having two of those things around makes me shudder the fuck out  
\- arsenicCatnip [AC] ceased trolling turntechGodhead [TG] -

Dave groaned. He still couldn't catch on to her, but he figured out from the abrupt log-out that she was right behind him. That wasn't the groan-worthy element. What was what the sounds of cackling electricity that let him know that his sprite was the first behind him. He turned to the orange tail. And refused to look up.

* * *

Her name was Rust Nepeta Leijon, this identity of which being hard to tell thanks to the scarf wrapping around most of her head.

Teal always found the overkill on attire a bit... unsettling, saying that was going a little far but that's the closest word she could think of. This section of the forest that she usually hangs out in is only _slightly_ colder and higher than the regular woods. In fact, it was only in the Season of Extreme Solar Angularity that she lost that thick dark red jacket and switched out her heavy pants for something that looked comfortable. And it was not that season. Close enough to start feeling second-hand heat from her snow-like outfit.

Rust was currently lying on the ground staring into the stars. Teal assumed. This was still far from a clearing, but it wasn't like there was any wildlife larger than insignificant bugs laying around. Even Teal couldn't see anything of note, and the ants and beetles and some lusii races just looked like dots. She presumed they looked invisible to Rust. Maybe she was just looking to the woods for inspiration to her little comic book project - despite her not having a real hive to claim for herself, Rust was able to keep that sheer amount of sketches and pages in her sylladex.

"Hi." Said Teal, "Remember that Karkat guy?"

"Mmhmm hmm mmph mmp." She muffled, not moving from her position.

"Well... he finally found a One that wanted to talk to him back, Cobalt, and he says that you need a computer to play something about stopping the apocalypse? I'll her your handle and I'll send you the file."

She finally stood up. And unraveled the cloth around her mouth.

"私はこれがオンラインで再び私を取得するためのトリックではありません願っています。"

"I don't know. When was the last time Cobalt said something that wasn't honest?"

Rust tapped her chin.

"Right. Now, if you can afford it..."

She dashed off.

But anyway, this is Rust's introduction, so we'll keep the focus on her and leave Teal behind. Rust here is a long-standing practicer of fire and ice magic, a wannabe super-speed assassin. And... uh... with a lack of a distinctive hive giving a more formal introduction wasn't possible... not like this has been going on, from the lack of the second person narration to the loss of any usual mannerisms... Hm...

She's currently on her way to the computer store. There's not much else to go from here, so it's time to whip out the dart board again.

* * *

Her name was Violet Nepeta Leijon, and let's skip things ahead a bit.

The wrecked ship seemed like an odd location for a troll who didn't know how to swim to live. Yes, breathing under water wasn't a problem for a sea dweller, but that means little when she can barely do much other than sink like a rock and hope that the climb back up is as smooth as possible.

Still, this felt like the kind of environment that meant wearing a particularly modest, age-appropriate swimsuit not at all like what... _that One_ we skipped over for now was wearing. We're still skipping over her.

Right now Violet was also not within her hive, but in the training course just outside of it.

Several series of concentric circles, alternating between red and white, were drawn on pieces of shipwreck that stuck out from the ocean. It was these that she subjected the occasional bolt of odd white "science" would hit at, leaving a small burnt mark. Her aim was getting better. And she was going to miss this place if it wasn't warped in with the game. The meteors were already starting elsewhere on the planet, not boding well for this little brawl yard.

By this point, Teal entered and the 'unknown' (Ie the not yet introduced) acting as her server was about to go in next. As for the 'test run...' well, first of all there was someone with them. Whoever that was, they stole the "client" computer dropped in, got everything prepared and warped a section of the cave into this place called the "Medium" in seconds flat, going unnoticed and unseen even through Teal's superior vision. Then the mystery player broke the connection somehow.

When shown this, Karkat only nodded. Something might be up.

Actually, something _was_ up and still _is_. Thinking about this, Violet gripped her hands and rushed over to her nearest computer.

\- chromophilicAquarium [CA] began trolling adorabloodthirstyGrip [AG] -  
CA: :9 hey colbalt purrsuade that 9uy i think he knows about that mystery player  
AG: :::8 nah i like him now  
CA: :9 that wasnt a re9uest thou9h  
CA: :9 common pleeeeeaaase?  
AG: ::::8 i dont want to get into his mind  
AG: ::::8 plus theres a chance he might 8e a purple 8lood and could counter my powers  
CA: :9 why the fuck would he hide his blood if its the third-hi9hest color?  
AG: ::::8 i dont know  
AG: ::::8 may8e 8ecause that caste is full of stoners and weirdos and ruthless dictators?  
AG: ::::8 shame exists you know  
CA: :9 oh  
CA: :9 well im 9lad my best pal isnt like that  
CA: :9 he should talk to her  
AG: ::::8 uh wait gotta go right now he wants my computer  
CA: :9 wait really?  
\- adorabloodthirstyGrip [AG] ceased trolling chromophilicAquarium [CA] -

Dammit someone new is online.

\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling chromophilicAquarium [CA] -  
CG: YOU KNOW I CAN READ OVER HER SHOULDER  
CA: :9 9o away  
CG: FINE  
\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling chromophilicAquarium [CA] -

Well that was pretty intense. A real David vs Golliath, if Violet knew who those were.

Violet was Goliath. And Goliath won.

* * *

Her name was Bronze Nepeta Leijon, and life was fucking _sweet_.

Food walked right up to her. But hey, let's stop talking about the animal-hunting and fixate on another character trait to try to reinterpret into ten different blood colors.

Ah, right, blood painting. Well shipping was out of the question considering the inherant uncomfortable closeness being with one's self was like... except for Fuchsia, but fuck her. Honestly. No, Bronze's hive walls were decorated in a planned draft for a brand new comic series.

Let's read one such series of action panels right now, shall we? A quick little four-panel... four-paneler. Yeah, that sounds close enough to a real word.

 _The first panel skips right to the point: A fairly average troll had gone completely monsterous! Toxic waste transformed him into a massive lizard-like creature that was already spitting out... um, why not fire, over at trollian society._

 _Next panel, warships were deployed. Not that big of a deal. Part of the Violet Authority was on their way to stop the force. Or, really, just get some Subjugglators to try to control it for use as a weapon. Would the current Empress herself need to step in and stop them?_

 _Then the airship fired bullets at the monster. Not exactly the top-tier troll weapon, but it was a start._

 _Bronze picked this as a sort of "cliffhanger." A shot of a pair of feet. A green-clad hero able to restore peace and order. The toxic mutation will somehow be undone or something like that, but to comply with troll society guideless she should probably just change it so that the hero kills the monster instead._

It was a bit cheesy, yes, but it was aimed at younger kids. And Bronze was sure that this was the exact audience that would eat it up. Since she used to be a part of it not too long ago, and everything.

And another comic... oh. That pile of boxes.

Yeah, those boxes were still there from the last time company came over, and might have to remain there for the whole game if Teal and Purple's claim that the server will be able to see inside the client's house were true. Yep, that was the _definitely_ not for kids section, odd in that Bronze is _definitely_ not the target audience yet. Hey, it's her smut.

Rust smashed through the window with her new card-tablet thing in hand, sitting right becide where Bronze just stood and faced with a prompt that had something to do with downloading the client file. And yep, that brand new spankin' Trollian handle. acetoneAlleycat.

"Cmm fh mm mmph phphmm mmff?"

"Why? Teal doesn't have some kind of side-tree house to use?"

"Mmph hhhmm hmmm phrmm mmrrph hmph rrff hm phmm mmp hrr mmh mmf hm hm."

Bronze shrugged. "Well. Can't argue with that. A rush is a rush. But you don't feel too hot? I mean, that scarf looks really uncomfortable in here."

Rust once again pulled the maroon-colored scarf off from her face, letting a clear sigh from her.

"So. Wanna be my server?"

"私はすでにインディゴのサーバーです。"

"Well, can I at least be your server? I wanna get into the chain as fast as I can!"

"彼の血の色を保持していること男は秘密はすでに役割を取りました。"

"You're... you're letting _him_ play? Why?"

She held a hand out, as if offering the explanation. "彼は私たちが黙示録をエスケープさせることです。それは、我々は彼を返済するために行うことができ、少なくともです。"

"Okay, but make sure he's the only one who isn't a One! And maybe whoever it is that was in the 'test run.'" Bronze shuddered after finishing that last part.

Nodding, Rust bolted out the door and ran into a shack just outside the brownblood's main hive. Several metal objects appeared out of nowhere carried by an olive-colored, hive-shaped cursor that dropped them all through the roof.

Bronze rested her head on her hand. Well, at least she never used that thing. And if the details on these 'gates' are accurate, she'll be able to see it again after-

Jeez it already disappeared. Wait, does that mean that-

Thankfully, it was a small meteor, but the explosion still literally knocked her out of her boots. Um... half the hive was still intact. That included the smut corner. The other half cut off at black-marked, shapeless scorches that acted like outlines between the roomy location and the great outdoors.

She would have hissed at where the shack used to be, until she looked up and found several tiny red dots across the sky, with a bigger, yellow one at the center.

Oh. The meteors.

Just the right time to get a message on her computer.

\- tabbyCute [TC] began trolling adorablenessTerminal -  
TC: B4 hey  
TC: B4 hey  
TC: B) heeeeeeeeey  
AT: :1 meows the game?  
TC: B4 mello is the best w4y to put it  
TC: B4 i like my l4nd 4nd theres 4n overwhelming vibe of  
TC: B4 dont worry  
TC: B4 be h4ppy  
AT: :1 1 know :1... :3  
TC: B$ ye4h 4nd to think i w4s gonne be psyched out since this w4s new 4nd unfriendly  
TC: B4 w4it 4 minute i didnt me4n to type th4t "4" 4s 4 currency m4rker i slipped up with the shit key  
TC: B4 i me4n 4g4in  
TC: B4 shift key  
TC: B( 4www  
AT: :1 dont worry 1ts f1ne  
AT: :1 so whos my server player?  
TC: B4 i dont know but hey dont let your f4te be told to you  
TC: B4 c4rve wh4tever path it is th4t YOU w4nt to m4ke  
TC: B4 just be c4lm 4nd keep h4ppy you know wh4t im s4ying?  
AT: :? ...whatever  
\- adorablenessTerminal ceased trolling tabbyCute [TC] -

* * *

The pattern's back in business! Her name is Purple Nepeta Leijon, and yeah living in a hive with a partly-flooded first floor is kind of weird. But hey, it helps her think.

Think about what, exactly? Well, right now, a lot of things. Her hive was still slightly filled with water after entering her Land, in part due to the entire pond going in with her. And partly due to... actually no, the whole pond being warped counted too.

Yes, TC was on her way to explore this unfamiliar tiny planet fate put her to. Of course, that would mean leaving the hive. Which was done through her favorite method of transport through the lowest floor: Lying on her back and letting the waves drift her through.

...

...

Yeah this is probably gonna take a bit. Let's see someone else before getting back to her. Anyone. Maybe even that one we skipped over...

* * *

Dave reversed.

This was the first known time that his group came across a doomed timeline, and hopefully it would be the last. The sheer unknown of what would happen and what would be needed to fix this was just one in many of a Time player's trials. Each reverse would mark a new point to revisit the question: Just _what_ exactly would make the timeline right? _What_ is the true path everyone should go on?

Hopefully, the team having _eight_ sprites should help out a little.

This now-offshoot Dave looked at his non-God Tier, presumably alpha timeline self holding that same poster that may have been the element to doom them all.

"Hey I don't care what Bro says you are not prototyping Hank."

Alpha-Dave turned away from the orange Becsprite and nearly jumped back when he noticed the alien his offshoot's arm was wrapped around.

"Who is that?" He asked.

"Your new sprite."

* * *

CT: :% uh  
CT: :% purple  
CT: :% do you wanna maybe  
CT: :% speed things up?  
CT: :% im waiting a long time while rust is building my hive up  
CT: :% and i dont want to leave you without any way up  
CT: :% but im too scared to build or anything while youre...  
CT: :% not even prepared for any of this  
TC: B4 doesnt punching enemies m4ke you feel better 4bout this kind of thing?  
CT: :% yeah hahah  
CT: :% sorry to bother you so much!  
CT: :% hey though to see enemies better i think you should take off your shades!  
TC: B4 um...  
TC: B4 n4h im good  
CT: :% yeah of course you are why would i think otherwise hahaha!  
CT: :% ...  
CT: :% *ct sighs as she notes the first gate can be accessed*  
CT: :% um i gotta go just forget the stupider stuff i said  
CT: :% bye!  
TC: B4 *a%essed  
TC: B4 c'mon sister if you h4ve 4 substitution quirk you gott4 use it 4s often 4s you c4n!  
CT: :% nah that looks kinda tacky  
CT: :% anyway bye for real!

* * *

I don't want to do exactly what canon does and introduce the fuchsiablood last, and we're down to just one real option left becides her. So I guess it's time. Stop procrastinating and get this aggressive naked... One out of the way.

Her name is Fuchsia Nepeta Leijon, and she gladly lies about her lusus.

We're also skipping foreward a bit more here, she was also swimming in her underwater land. Well, while still in her hive. Sort of.

CC: :I are you In yet?  
TA: :22 *2igh*  
TA: :22 that2 the 2econd time thi2 conver2ation you a2ked me that  
TA: :22 and the fifth que2tion overall  
CC: :I stop It fact-checker I want our entIre daIsy chaIn In so that thIs game can fInally get InterestIng  
CC: :I and so that you wont dIe and fuck up the tImelIne or somethIng  
TA: :22 have you been talking to aa?  
CC: :I I talked to everyone especIally rust and I am gettIng FUCKiNG BORED  
CC: :I come on I thInk I know a few shortcuts to get around the game  
CC: :I Ill send vIolet a jetpack and let her take care of the rest  
CC: :I actually I already dId  
TA: :22 how did you get the code for it?  
CC: :I what I fuckIng dIdnt  
CC: :I I dIdnt already tell you?  
CC: :I I already owned a jetpack  
CC: :I based on teal thIs game Is IncredIbly borIng tedIous and repetetIve  
CC: :I run around solvIng very basIc puzzles over and over  
CC: :I Its the endgame shIt where thIngs get InterestIng  
CC: :I so you know what? JETPACKS FOR EVERYBODY and were cheatIng our way through  
TA: :22 but it would be more fun to play the game the right way!  
CC: :I shut the fuck up Im makIng thIs mandatory and If you want to play thIs slow Ill come and hIt you  
TA: :22 ...are you threatening a p2ionic?  
TA: :22 i dont want to fight but you know i can fry you right?  
CC: :I bullshIt you cant hurt anythIng that actually talks and we all know It  
CC: :I In fact thats why I hate beIng assocIated wIth you other "Ones"  
CC: :I youre all pussIes  
\- catfishCuller [CC] ceased trolling twinAwesomepaws [TA] -

The first gate was just right there _is this game some kind of insult._

Everything was just punch-worthy in this game. It was all... well, at least it might be _easy_. Easier thanks to the jetpack. Yep, soon she'll be finished and off into whatever it is Sgrub has in store for her.

So let's skip over some pretty ruthless and harsh underling killing and get to the final Nepeta of the chapter.

* * *

Ah. This was a refreshing break from the desert. In fact, she didn't see that much of a need to carry around her neckerchief at all times. Maybe she can finally take it off.

Her name was Jade Nepeta Leijon, and we'll kill two birds with one stone by having the final major Pesterlog/Trolllog of the chapter deal with these final mystery quirks. Namely, pre-whatever that was Rust, and Jade's own.

\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] began trolling gargantuanAether [GA] -  
AA: :0 hi ^w^  
GA: :7= hello  
GA: :7= 7o be hones7 i almos7 feel like im 7alking 7o a comple7ely new person  
GA: :7= purrhaps because i never really spoke 7o you or 7yped in any way a7 all, now 7ha7 i 7hink abou7 i7  
GA: :7= heeheehee heeheehee hee!  
AA: :0 'kay  
AA: :0 im super excited with the... well the stuff in this game!  
AA: :0 c0me 0n spill it, is there anything i sh0uld n0te ab0ut?  
GA: :7= um  
GA: :7= uh  
GA: :7= well if 7he commen7s i hear abou7 you are 7rue 7hen 7ha7 migh7 mean  
GA: :7 every7hing abou7 7he game  
GA: :7 i heard 7ha7 someone who goes by 7en7acle7herapis7 wro7e a really good walk7hrough so if you need any7hing jus7 head down over 7here  
AA: :0 0n what site?  
GA: :7= oh  
GA: :7= oh 7ha7  
GA: :7= well i7s kind of odd she jus7 7ossed some kind of file ou7 in7o 7he server using some7hing she called  
GA: :7= "7he call of 7he corrup7ed"  
GA: :7= sorry her words my quirk  
GA: :7= in fac7 she doesn7 have a quirk!  
at thiZ exact moment your gold-blooded friend juZt FINALLY joined the competition!  
will Zhe Zmoke it? will Zhe fail?  
Zame applieZ to all of YOU!  
THAT iZ the leading queZtion of the deadly game of...  
SGRUB!  
i wiZh that had more wordZ in it Zo i could make a dramatic pauZe between each word!  
GA: :7= wai7 why is 7here so much space af7er 7ha7 line  
GA: :7= weird gli7ch ive never seen before!  
AA: :0 0h... thats n0t a glitch  
AA: :0 the REAL reas0n why i didnt get an acc0unt is because when i tried 0ut using teals c0mputer s0me0ne with white text kept harassing me  
AA: :0 yeah thats him highlight that  
GA: :7= how do you know i7s a him  
AA: :0 he t0ld me  
AA: :0 h0w did y0u kn0w ab0ut this new acc0unt?  
dudette im toteZ omniZcient.  
im Zorry but texting you with my ZUPERPHONE iZ juZt Zomething that getZ my fingerZ BARKING.  
AA: :0 but why? UmU  
uh Zomething really bad iZ gonna happen and i think i can nudge you all into Ztopping it?  
phyZically im kinda powerleZZ to do anything which iZ ironic Zince im like kind of omnipotent too  
GA: :7= im sorry bu7 our race is doomed 7o ex7inc7ion wi7h 7he loss of 7he home plane7 and 7he fall of 7he mo7hergrub  
GA: :7= and apparen7ly some7hing is going 7o kill all 7rolls in 7he galaxy 7ha7 aren7 us  
GA: :7= wha7 could be worse 7han 7ha7?  
AA: :0 y0ure actually listening t0 this guy?  
AA: im s0rry but i think thats a time waster  
um yeah you Zee i know a lot but thereZ alZo a lot of gapZ.  
remember when i Zaid i waZ omniZcient? well Zhoot i gueZZ that waZ a lie.  
AA: :0 100k jade  
AA: :0 he uses peri0ds hes n0t 0ne 0f us  
AA: :0 we sh0uld ign0re him hell die in whatever it is that will kill all tr0ll life except us  
heh heh, not really.  
you Zee, all i know about what killZ me iZ that it IZ the Zame thing that killZ the trollZ.  
but Zeveral centurieZ later.  
what that thing iZ iZ a huge gap in my omniZcience, but not when the exact moment i die iZ.  
it ZcareZ the crap out of me.  
AA: :0 n0w y0u s0und like y0ure just making stuff up!  
AA: :0 jade when i say that this is a waste 0f 0ur time talking t0 this guy i think it means a l0t since acc0rding t0 my sprite im a time pers0n i think  
AA: :0 lets listen t0 that  
GA: :7= whi7e 7ex7 man can i 7alk 7o you one-on-one?  
i gueZZ but only if i have Zomething important to Zay.  
i only give ruZt Zo much becauZe you know what they Zay about ruZtbloodZ!  
AA: :0 see 100k! hes a1s0 a big b100dist!  
GA: :7= 7here i7 is again i never knew you liked 7he number one hundred  
AA: :0 n0 thats n0t a 0ne hundred thats a ten and then a zer0  
AA: :0 well anyway please try n0t t0 pester me unless y0u have s0mething imp0rtant t0 say  
AA: :0 that g0es f0r all Ones actually  
GA: :7= bu7 you were 7he one 7ha7 7rolled me  
GA: :7= or should i say 7he One?  
hey juZt letting you know i omniZciate only, like, nine more converZationZ left with you guyZ before i have nothing left to Zay and then die.  
not counting thiZ one.  
AA: :0 whatever weird0  
\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] ceased trolling gargantuanAether [GA] -

Well, that kind of sums them up in a very, very brief manner... what's next? Game's started. Or... no...

After some reversed-time, it will be about to start. Yeah anachronic order can fuck with tense a lot.

* * *

 **([WFP] Rewind)**

[Pages with WF mean that it's a **W** annabe **F** lash **P** age. This is the only time you'll see this notation.]

Well, that was unexpected.

The mystery player was not only not dead but finally responded back, wordlessly logging in and saving Gold before the extrordinarly huge meteor swooped in to demolish the whole continent. Thrown in at the absolute last second (as usual) was the prototyping item, a tiny portable game grub gift from Indigo a while back.

Before Gold's entry, Fuchsia banged and thrashed against all of the equipment as if to make a point. It was also made clear that she _didn't_ have some kind of horrorbeast as her lusus, but instead a simple catfish. A _tiny_ catfish. Which wasn't prototyped either. Instead she gutted some random poor whale and was done with it.

Of course, going back further, Fuchsia's own serving skills were anything but polite. Thanks to using some slope-related exploits and levrage, she got all of the equipment to smash out Violet's target course, even if it meant that they were outside of the playing field. And possibly not going to enter the Medium. Meh. Worth it. She chose to prototype the remains of one of her precious targets, becoming Targetsprite in the future. Not so worth it anymore.

Everything was placed neatly for Jade. Layed out in a hall, blocking nothing, all of the alchemiter equipment was deployed for an easy entry. Though... if this planet was gonna be under attack by meteors... probably best to prototype the Mother Grub. Especially with that weirdo white text guy saying that the galaxy would be wiped out thanks to something. It just _felt_ right, even though by no means was it her business at all.

Back when Jade was facing the dilema on what to prototype, Cobalt really felt like getting her hive back. Thanks to Karkat's _pretty uncalled for_ hijacking (though he didn't _seem_ to have a choice on the matter... whatever), she had to wander a bit before even installing the client game. Well, this temple built in the honor of the Ones looked good enough. Prototyping a statue wasn't really a good idea, since that would just mean that most of the players would have to kill enemies with their own faces on them. Hm, paintings, paintings, at least the game was installed at this point... There. Some painting of a great, eldritch horror that was said to be fought by the Ones but in actuallity it's just some cheap shadow tentacle monster from a fan fic. Perfect.

As discussed before, Bronze's hive was blown in half. She remained tapping her foot on part of the remains, staring out into what used to be the shed when Cobalt started dropping items right becides her. What was next? Once that brown flashing sphere thing came out the next option was to beat Cobalt to the prototyping. And- shoot. That cursor was already on what seemed like a cute drawing of a tan-skinned alien lady, hard for Cobalt to tell since the paper was crumpled and obscured everything but her face. Once said prototyping revealed the Busty, Naked Multi-Woman of Atbash V (sprite form now just Multisprite), she gave her server a talking to.

AT: :1 WHAT. D1D 1. SAY. ABOUT. SNOPP1NG. AROUND. MY. H1VE?  
AG: ::::8 sorry! i didnt think it would 8e that 8ad!  
AG: ::::8 i didnt even think sgru8 would allow nudity like that  
AT: :1 UGH!  
AT: :1 DO YOU KNOW WHAT TH1S MEANS?  
AT: :1 everyth1ng has boobs now that parts a g1ven  
AT: :1 and my prototyp1ng 1s permanent  
AT: :1 mean1ng that at the very least my spr1te w1ll forever be some comb1nat1on of s1x women w1th v1s1ble full breasts that just BEARLY cuts off before the naughty b1ts and her f1gure w1ll really be d1stract1ng to me...  
AT: :1 also you know th1s 1snt a k1d-fr1endly game 1 mean teals den1zen looks l1ke a bone buldge for our sake and have you SEEN ANY of the lands?  
AG: ::::8 8ut wont the underlings 8e paper-weak since i didnt prototype the character i prototyped the paper you drew her on?  
AT: :1 maybe  
AT: :1 well that 1s worth look1ng foreward to

Before that things just _slipped_ and _happened_ and suddenly Bronze tossed everything into Cobalt's hive while Karkat was supposed to be her client. Immediately after the kernel was revealed, he gave her a pretty strong-worded message saying not to dump anything in while he uncaptchalogued the dead corpse of some obscure lusus species. Crabsprite was born, and Cobalt was left hiveless for the game.

As detailed before, Rust's entry was no problem. Just run into a shed (which appeared to be under attack by a meteor - thankfully Karkat said nothing of this for some reason), wait for everything to be set, and enter. There was some complaining on Bronze's part, but it was worth it to have _something_ stable which can be copy-pasted. Trying to play a session with just rock to try to shape up with the game's tools would be _disasterous_. Um, going by a guess from accounts from Teal, Purple, and Indigo on how the game works. Yeah, that. Her kernel was subjected to this mysterious tiny frog statue found in the shed. When asked about it, Bronze said it was there when she got the hive, and in fact the only item in the shed before she cluttered it up.

Having a mobile hive appeared to pay off. Now Indigo was dodging meteors that would have otherwise completely smoked her original spot. Oh yeah, and those crazy cultists. Evading them counted too. Since Sgurb was still hell-bent on last second escape drama though, a huge ring of meteors appeared right in the city she navigated too, with an enourmous one acting in the center. Striking _just_ as she entered. But not before prototyping some scrap, meaningless piece of machinery that composed one of her many unfinished projects. Hey, that's what happens when a hive comes full of metal like that. And, unlike the three higher on the spectrum than her, it's put to good use.

Purple had no problems following Indigo's orders - if anything, it seemed to be the other way around. Like she was even paying attention to the other's messages. No, Purple was too busy making a fuss over what to prototype. After hearing about Teal, there were so many wonderful possibilities, and not just one, but _two_. _Two_ things can be put into a kernel and mix and match and if you combine things first and prototype it at once then that's _three_ things and oh wow oh wow the possibilities were endless- yeah. A stick. Let's go with that.

Teal had to be told more of the bare basics of the game from Karkat, since none of the other players she knew entered yet, and neither her own server nor the mystery player were of any help. With the cruxtrader's timer starting at 6:16, she had some time to go out and "prototype" a sprite before entering. And it was supposedly very important that it got prototyped _before_ entry. She just killed some random giant lizard-like beast (that was definitely not someone's lusus, she always makes sure first) and chucked that in. Then, with everything set and the entry item in place, we'll go back to turning time back foreward as the Lands revealed themselves to each player...

Land of Suds and Flow.

Land of Meat and Mirth.

Land of Seas and Silence.

Land of Hell and Heaven.

Land of Evergreens and Milk.

Land of Iron and Sand.

Land of Hymns and Praise.

Land of Zephyr and Frogs.

Land of Plague and Wrath.

Land of Paint and Glass.

Land of Volt and Brains.

Eleven out of twelve got passed around from one Trollian message to another, but that itching mystery player still remained. Gold, the one person who could _definitely_ just fly up to her second gate as soon as she entered and answer at least what that planet looked like up close, didn't. It took Fuchsia and Violet's trip over there to get a straight answer out of her, which will be covered shortly.

From far, on the other hand, the mystery land was definitely bright. Accounts of the other players seeing it from different angles have noted that some kind of grass was present there at the very least (maybe, it looked like grass from a really really really far distance). The rest... even with alchemised telescopes and the like, it was hard to make out any real finer details other than that.

Speaking of alchemy, Fuchsia flew down from Gold's second gate, Violet in hand, and both of them dropped down to the large, open square floor that served as an entry way to the first gate.

"Okay, why haven't you gone into Gate Two yet?" Asked the highest blood.

"Well... why haven't you flown to your fourth gate, Ms. 'I Wanna Skip and Break the Game?' The mystery player didn't build anything higher so I don't think they want me to enter. That's also why I'm trying to find a way to build around your fourth gate."

"I'm not entering yet because I think that if any of us are going to see this coward's face, they'll be more convinced if someone who _isn't_ me goes in!"

The cursor made its re-appearance as it dragged a large box across this pseudo-rooftop. It clicked. Some seconds later, the trio was covered with shade thanks to a new box appearing over them and incasing the second gate. Becides them, a staircase leading to the box.

"Now the player sealed it off!" Gold continued. "Again, this person doesn't want us to talk to them!"

"You're being ridiculous. This is supposed to be a co-op game. Violet, I brought you here to tell Gold to her face that when I build your hive up to the sixth gate, you enter."

Violet sighed as her eyes drifted as low as possible. She also shook from Fuchsia's grasp. "I'm trying to rebel or disagree against you, but I don't mind that plan. I want to try to make a new friend with this troll."

"Oh. Good. Will you be the one to jet-pack into their land?"

"Ummm... yeah why not?"

" _Good_. Let's both go there."

Pchoo.

Sighing, Gold's only real option was to follow them. To the mysterious maybe-grass planet.

* * *

Alpha-timeline Dave analysed what remained of what lied in front of him.

There was still that doomed Dave in pajamas, the meaning of which he still hasn't figured out for his life.

So that cyan harlequin sprite, from his timeline, was prototyped with the ashes of John's Nanna by the looks of it and- oh look he's gonna explain things himself now. That's handy. Dave _really_ didn't feel like trying to figure this shit out on his own, aside from all tier-one prototypes appearing to be the same.

"Lowdown time. I think the diverge point was right after you- I mean, me-you prototyped some Hank Hill poster from your patriot-Bro's room into Becsprite. That led to Hanksprite, the guy you see before you with the orange that _won't shut up_ for the life of him. He isn't talking much now but my god if he has something important to say you'll never hear the end of it. Hanksprite was. A. Mistake. Don't ever make Hanksprite. I'll get him away from you before he has the chance to give his disturbing dog-fetish expositionary rants. Anyway, that over there is Nannasprite, from the ashes of John's Nanna, and uh... greenie is what happened when Jade chose to throw that creepy doll from her room into that flower-pot sprite. And that leaves the thing prototyped over Jaspers in Rose's sprite. Which was, as you can see, Rose's own naked mother after a really bad accident that I'm sure you may or may not want to know."

Alpha-Dave frowned.

"What? You thought I was gonna leave them to fade from existence?"

"Where's the John, Jade, and Rose from your timeline?"

"Dead. But their ghosts or something go to this place called the Furthest Ring? ...There's apparently this single eldritch spit bubble floating around there where most ghosts to go, I heard there might be plans to set up a system so that it won't be over-crowded but shit's complicated up in that outer hellhole. We'll see how things work out, in the meantime, trust me: Hanksprite is the worst. Again whatever you prototype, do not make another Hanksprite."

"Aw man, I am tellin' ya!" Said orange sprite finally opened his mouth. "This here is great! I feel dang-near invincible I'll tell you what! Hey there other Dave, woof woof I'm that new god-dog, man we had a god dog the entire time? Well not 'we' as in my own show since that was fiction but weirdly enough it's less weird than real life and now I'm in the real life where life is also a video game in the middle of some strange black hell thing and the god dog is appropriate since dogs are a man's best friend and men are God's best friends, this is so wild is there any way I can get prototyped with propane or some propane accessories too and possibly find a way to bring my other friends here-"

"That's another thing." Said pajama-Dave. "I looked up his friends. Don't. They all sound useless."

"But it'd be great to live things like the old times! I can set up my family again, and... wait a minute, that's it! Ectobiology! ...No, that might be able to make Bobby at least. Oh man, he'd be part dog too! You know, it might finally give the boy appreciation of dogs and- hold on, he spent about, like what, seven years while he was still thirteen? How did that happen? If anything either of you should figure that out since you're time players-"

"Hey look!" The alternate Dave cried as he opened up his inventory. Before showing anybody anything, he jump-flipped his way firmly onto Hanksprite's back and faced Nepetasprite. "I got a dog treat! I bet you want it! Do ya' boy? Do ya?"

Lo and behold, he held one such treat in his hand and waved it up high. As though this act was rehearsed, Nepetasprite covered her eyes and nose.

"Want it boy? Wannit?" Alt-Dave said with a clearly mocking tone, getting Hanksprite to pant after him.

"WELL FETCH!"

With one move, he tossed the treat right to Nepetasprite, and just like that she briefly turned into a black sprite-shaped window leading to a void with just a small green glow to the side and a solid platform below. Holding on tight, the offshoot Dave was willingly pulled by the other orange dog-person through this portal leaving only tiny splashes of glittering sprite goo behind.

"Hey! Other Olive! Alpha-timeline Olive, I think!" Cried Nepetasprite. "You can come out now!"

Stepping out from just around the corner was another one of those aliens - identical looking to what she looked like before jumping into that dog-held thing. Funny how she's currently the only person in the room who is probably fully from this not-doomed timeline yet also the last one to step in and be revealed.

"Hi..." She sheepishly waved to Dave.

"Who are you and how long have you been hiding there? ...Wait. You're John's AC-friend, right?"

* * *

02/14/2009.

\- arsenicCatnip [AC] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] -  
AC: :33 hi!  
AC: :33 i got your message and everything  
AC: X33 i mean that makes sense because how else would i message you?  
AC: :33 yeah i uh had problems with those "trolls" too  
AC: :33 twelve of them  
EB: they're the worst, aren't they?  
AC: :33 they love making these annoying cat puns and have a system that calls their talking "trolling"  
AC: :33 and uh  
AC: :33 what else?  
EB: everything they say starts with a weird smiley face.  
EB: wait, just like yours!  
AC: :33 um thats a thing over by where most of those twelve trolls are from  
AC: :33 canada  
AC: :33 its lately a common weird canadian thing to put faces in front of everything  
AC: :33 weird alien faces  
AC: :33 based on this popular canadian tv show  
AC: :33 we canadians are weird  
EB: can't argue with that!  
AC: :33 especially coming from a canadian herself  
AC: :33 since im you know a canadian  
EB: one of the trolls doesn't use the smilies though, is he... not canadian?  
AC: :33 oh uh  
AC: :33 carcinogeneticist?  
EB: yeah that one.  
AC: :33 oh i know him personally  
AC: :33 that guy is a fad dodger  
AC: :33 dont worry about him though  
AC: :33 i know that hell never bother you again  
EB: who are you?  
AC: X33 i already told you!  
AC: :33 just a friend over from canada  
EB: what's canada like?  
AC: :33 cold  
AC: :33 anyway i gotta go see you soon!  
\- arsenicCatnip [AC] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] -

* * *

 **Rust Translations in Case Google Translate isn't Reliable Enough or Changes Things Around:**

"I hope this isn't a trick to get me online again."

"I'm already Indigo's server."

"That guy who keeps his blood color a secret already took the role."

"He's letting us escape the apocalypse. It's the least we can do to repay him."

 **Closing AN:**

Well... personally this moved at a little too fast of a pace for me, as in that the next chapter will have to mostly be a perspective change because the twists start coming in at around this point.

Tell me what you think of the concept so far! And as for exactly where I'm going with this... you'll see. I'll get out the way right now that this is gonna be kind of fast-paced. It's not really gonna be as focused as Pesterlogs and character interactions as quite a few other AU-type fanworks. Mostly because, to be honest, I'm not really sure if an "Everyone is Nepeta" AU alone is enough to carry on a decent, lengthy story. Heck Fuchsia (and the other to lesser extents) might even border as an OC and less of an actual depiction of an alternate Nepeta, especially since her temper was originally just based on the "higher blood, more violent" thing that was only really stated by Equius, and Feferi herself already disproved fuchsiabloods being inherently assholish to exceptional levels. Though an all- _Vriska_ AU, I admit, might be funny to read, if only because of how their plans would inevitably be stepping all over eachother and see how bad they'd mess everything up.

To answer the question in the title, and why it's even there: A while ago I did this stupid thing called _Sweet Jade and Hella John_ , mostly just dumping together misc ideas I had for stories without any real plans on where to put them. One such idea was several bloodswaps of Nepeta. This could **technically** be considered their spinoff, even if they're pretty different.

So, chapters two and three are already mostly finished, I'm just going to look them over a little bit. They might be out in around... anywhere from one week to a month, depending on how slow I want to do the final lookover.


	2. Uniqueness

**Bl:oodswap: Guess Who's Getting a Spinoff?**

 **Chapter 2: Uniqueness**

 **Beginning AN:**

Fun fact: The conversation this begins with was originally going to be at the end of the first chapter. Then I replaced it with the pesterlog between Olive (or that's who you're led to think, at least) and John, because this would _kinda_ give _something_ away, that would be a clue I'd rather not give readers until the chapter with the reveal.

* * *

hey uh...  
ill be quick i normally only bother ruZt but...  
i feel like warning you in a friendly way.  
pretty much EVERYONE iZ flying over to your location.  
you cant keep your cover forever.  
CG: :5 oh no...  
eight converZationZ left.  
not counting thiZ one.

* * *

His name was John Egbert.

Getting the game was a surprisingly quick and simple process, though it helped that he had someone who seemed to know a _lot_ about this particular little house-builder. Everything was going just as her plans said, which was apparently a really good thing. Nice to know that he was getting a recommendation from his newest friend?

With Dave so far holding no interesting in playing and Rose currently caught in an exceptionally bad electrical storm, John's only server option left was Jade.

Thankfully for what it's worth, Jade seemed to be equally obsessed with playing some latest-beta test computer game. She already had the game installed (of course. You can tell from the pacing of the first chapter that this is not going to go through every unchanged canon detail, even if there are very little) and three out of three machines were planted conveniently. Now all that was left was to figure out what to do with that server disc of his own...

Oh wait. She's contacting him again.

\- arsenicCatnip [AC] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] -  
AC: :33 ok now you n33d to drop something heavy on the lid  
AC: :33 bang it meowpen  
AC: :33 *sorry the cat pun thing is spreading its also popular in canada  
EB: with what?  
AC: :33 oh i didnt consider you cant find something  
AC: :33 if you cant bang something there then ask jade shell pick up and drop an object  
EB: how did you open your cruxtrader?  
EB: right now it's this big box that's stuck and locked up near my living room.  
AC: :33 um thats hard to say!  
AC: :33 i entered mostly in a surprising and clawfounding way  
AC: :33 the rest of my team never expected me to even exist!  
AC: :33 they still kind of dont h33h33h33h33  
EB: you played the game when nobody even knew who you are?  
AC: :33 yeah sort of!  
AC: :33 they thought i was just some crazy random nobody that was bothering them a little bit  
AC: :33 especially the fuchsia one  
EB: the fuchsia what?  
AC: :33 um that will take some time to explain  
AC: :33 ill tell you when you activate your special item!  
EB: hey i think i see something in the sky  
AC: :33 dont look up there! get the cruxtrader open and set everything up for whats called "entry"!  
EB: that's part of the game?  
EB: if it can make rooms of the house bigger and drop machines from the sky, then it can also summon a monster in the sky?  
AC: :33 i said dont worry about it!  
EB: wait jade's doing something. i think she's trying to open that cruxtrader thing.

* * *

"Karkat!" Indigo cried. "Kaaaarkaaaat!"

Yeah, navigating around this boy's built up hive - no, wait, Cobalt's built-up hive - was a bit of a challenge. He was sitting right next to his second gate, looking down to the tree tops that had mostly obscured the floor of his still land. Glowing was the great gray circle, which still remained untouched. That Crabsprite was nowhere to be seen.

"Karkat, Fuchsia started a trek to the mystery player's planet. I was wondering... if you would like to come too? Meet another player who doesn't look like us, isn't named like us, and overall you won't feel so alone I think?"

It took a little to get an answer from him, or any response for that matter. Indigo drew herself closer to his side, but made sure to keep her distance from rubbing against him.

These were the same boundries Rust did not show when she rubbed up against his side, popping up out of near-nowhere.

"Mprh mmff hhmp mmm-mm phm rrmm mph fffmp!" Her speech went back to being obscured by the thick scarf around her neck.

With a quick stand-up, Karkat nearly threw Rust to the ground. He also lightly pushed Indigo aside. "God, my one oppertunity to speak one-on-one with the mystery player that hijacked our whole game and could possibly sabotage everything and your infestation is getting their way in first!"

"What?"

" _THINK._ Wouldn't someone be more than a little unsettled if she saw ten strangers who obviously have different blood backgrounds yet otherwise looked alike? And even if she knew about that cultist bullshit that surrounds you, you don't think she might-"

"It's ten to one." Indigo giggled. "Relax."

"Mrrph mms mmph hrrm hm hhmmp prr mmf mhmmh hmm?"

"...What did the one in the scarf say?"

"She asked how you knew the mystery player was a she."

Karkat blinked.

"You know what? Fine. I'll throw it away like a free prize no-body wants. I knew about this 'mystery player.' The test run wasn't a test run. It's to get her inside the game too."

And after that the kid began walking to the direction of his gate. "You won't get any more out of me! If you want to risk talking to her and pissing her off, _that's your problem!_ "

Just before back-flipping into the gate, the trio heard a small beep coming from his crab-computer.

"He knows Bronze is still by what's left of her hive, right?"

Rust shrugged.

"So, let's meet up with Fuchsia and the others."

* * *

EB: so i did what i think you called 'entering.'  
EB: it's weird and kind of hard to figure out what's going on?  
EB: it looked like i was just hit by an eclipse but then i looked down and saw that my house was on a cliff!  
EB: a cliff!  
EB: why would a computer thing do such a thing!  
AC: :33 its kind of both the only way to save you from the apawcatnips even when its also the claws of the apawcatnips  
AC: :33 small doses so RIGHT NOW ill only tell you about your own land  
AC: :33 whatever it is i think its based on the player  
AC: :33 and its not on earth or in the computer  
AC: :33 the game teleports its players to some other place outside of time  
AC: :33 if your sprite is of the talking type it can tell you  
EB: yeah my sprite looks different but he's still saying gibberish.  
EB: it grew this... tail? is that normal?  
AC: :33 completely normal  
AC: :33 a harlequin with little to no established purrsonality will be like that  
AC: :33 one of my other players prototyped a stick  
AC: :33 a STICK  
AC: :33 and we couldnt understand what it said either

* * *

"Alright Mr. Jack Noir, I won't warn you again. How do I get to Derse, and where are the other agents at-"

Broznze cut herself off when she noticed Cobalt and Jade running in her direction, both panting.

"You don't have to beat him up anymore," Cobalt said as she looked at the slightly bruised carapase tied to the chair. Among the tentacles, multi-heads, 'branches,' and beast parts to the outfit (which seemed to torture him more than anything Bronze could think of), perhaps the most unsettling thing about his attire was that it contained the Nepeta's own signs. Same with some of the underlings. Since the first entry. "I can purrsuade him now."

"That works on Carapases?"

"Yes."

"Well _shit_. Makes me wonder what I haven't tried my powers on! You think the underlings will... I don't know, listen to me?"

Jade shook her head. "Try not to be over-reliant on your powers so much. Especially when we're not on Alternia anymore."

Bronze crossed her arms. "This could be important! And I don't see you telling Cobalt not to use her powers!"

"That's because this is the kind of thing where our powers will help us out in the long run! But walking right past the underlings..."

"The underlings are kind of, well, weak-tier enemies." The brown-blooded Nepeta said with a huff. "I can take those assholes on. I don't need to grind on them over and over again. If this works, I can fling them off of cliffs and they'll still give me grist."

With a sigh, Jade began walking up a stair set. "Okay, fine, do whatever you want."

"...LOGAF."

All three present Nepetas came to a halt as they heard the acronym finally leave Jack's mouth.

"What?" Asked Bronze.

"LOGAF. I sent them all in LOGAF. The kooky broad you don't know about is putting up a real fight. Right now they're stationed at Land of Grass and Freedom, and they'll stick there unless I give orders."

"So!" Bronze cried as she tipped Jack's chair over. "It's settled! We'll head over to the mystery planet! After all, half of us are there already and it works out best for everybody!"

In spite of this, she was the only one who took off. Cobalt and Jade stood there, toying with their jetpacks, before rushing back to untie Jack.

"I thought you might be super pissed if Bronze did this to you, so I snuck you a little something from Derse. I would say think of it as a reward for interrogating you, but that sounds kind of mean."

A golden ring with twelve glowing white orbs slipped from her sylladex and on to Jack's lap.

Jade stared at the incident before jetting to the skies like there was no tomorrow. Technically, there might already not be. However time works here.

"TAKE ME WITH YOU!" Karkat, with no warning, shouted as he slid his way into visibility. This was an action that made both Cobalt and Jack slip away, and the former actually fall over. "I need to be there to explain even more critical shit you couldn't possibly get without me."

"What happened to your jet pack?"

"Do I look like someone who would mindlessly take barked orders from a sociopath in a swimsuit that can't fit her? I threw my jetpack off in protest and it's back in my land. But since _everyone_ is having a _rainbow party_ on the 'mystery player's' land, I should be there to tell you everything about her myself. In person. Trust me."

"I don't really feel like-"

"Oh, but you would give a known serial stabber a prototyping ring?" As he said that, Jack was still staring at the golden object. Occasionally his eyes would dart over to Cobalt, then back.

"Well, Bronze didn't tie you to a chair and punch you in the face a lot!"

"The key word that flew over your think pan is _YET_."

* * *

GG: how do you know so much about the game?  
GG: if you really believe everything the new girl tells you then would you believe me if i said my prophecies came from clouds whenever i dream?  
EB: yeah, that sounds like skaia!  
GG: wow  
EB: ac is playing the game at the same time we are! except she's in canada and already playing with another group of her friends?  
EB: she started earlier than me so she knows a lot more.  
GG: how did she start earlier than you?  
GG: i thought the game didnt beta test in canada!  
EB: maybe someone sent her a copy?  
EB: maybe she went to america and came back.  
EB: um within three days.  
EB: somehow.  
GG: ill ask her  
EB: i already did!  
EB: she really doesn't like talking about where she's from that much.  
EB: she just keeps talking about how cold it is and doesn't say anything else.  
EB: i don't even know WHERE in canada she lives!  
GG: something sounds strange about that  
EB: like she's lying?  
GG: maybe  
GG: she doesnt sound like a reliable source  
GG: and you said that the game teleported you to the middle of a weird planet?  
EB: yeah it's in somewhere called the medium.  
EB: and it's the only way to save us all from something attacking earth?  
EB: i can't talk to my sprite about it, but i was supposed to.  
EB: but he's not "prototyped" with something "proper" so he only says gibberish.  
GG: mmm... ._.  
GG: something about this girl doesnt feel right  
GG: i never saw any visions of her i think but this is more of a gut feeling  
EB: like how i was going to save the earth?  
EB: according to ac and her "sprites" we can't.  
EB: yeah she says the planet will die and there's nothing we can do about it but run.  
EB: sad.  
GG: and you believe that?  
EB: well, she has these spirit guides that say this? i think i'd rather believe in them.  
EB: they have their sprites working and i'm still trying to prototype something!  
EB: but in case this is a lie i'll try my best to save the world as much as i can!  
EB: now, you have to build me to that circle thingy in the sky.

* * *

Land of Grass and Freedom already shaped up to be an oddball of a Land. Little sound overflowed something that had both a wide open space and was swarmed with ponds. Bird chirps echoed past the bright lime-colored grass and over reflective lakes. Lakes, puddles, ponds, and the like which also beamed back the same thick azure skies resting above, dotted with an occasional odd white cloud and overall reflecting the eerie atmosphere that is daytime itself. There was no blistering heat. If anything, it felt _far too cold._

Well with the sprite nowhere to be found and all gates having the inexplicable same "box" that taunted the space above Gold's hive, one: Jet-packing here was the better choice. Two: Any indication on this person's color was still left in the air.

The cave-hive was equally undecorated. Empty wardrobe, no real signs on any of the items lying around... a shipping wall? Huh. A lot of them involved Karkat it seems, but it was difficult to tell since the flushed and caliginous sections were largely scribbled out in bright red. None of the other figures, aside from the struck-out Karkat pairs (the other Ones to be specific) were recognizable.

"Alright," Said Fuchsia. "We're not waiting for Teal and Purple anymore. We searched the hive front to back and Karkat's still being a silent shit about it. Let's walk."

Er... fly, since they of course had to fly over the semi-deep and large pond that surrounded the hive's location. The instant they hit the other end, a few articles caught the entire group's eye. And Karkat facepalmed at them.

Clothes. Just jeans... a black shirt-

Fuchsia snatched the shirt instantly, the second and final garment on the grass. Taking a breath in, she flipped it around so as to look at what possible sign may be on it. The result? Her eye-size looked as though it doubled for a second, and she clung it right up to her chest. "Holy. Fucking. _Shit_."

"What is it?" Violet asked.

"We're waiting for Teal and Purple after all. I'd rather show you. All of you. It's the only way to drop both bombs at once. Personally I don't know which one is bigger... no, both of them at the same time is a _third_ bomb and it's easily _the biggest._ "

"Oh come on!" Cried Bronze, "If we kept something like this from you you'd bitch about it for a solid sweep!"

"How do you know? You don't know me for a full sweep yet."

"...Well, that wasn't a no, was it?"

Bronze smirked to herself as she, for the first time in her life, saw Fuchsia look down in defeat. "Okay, you win."

"I what?"

"Shut up and don't even fucking think about rubbing it in. I'll give you an early look too. C'mere."

Bronze paced over to Fuchsia's side while Cobalt appeared to be staring off to something in the distance. Needless to say the former also got an enthusiastic reaction from seeing whatever it was on that particular shirt.

* * *

CC: :I teal  
CC: :I TEAL  
CC: :I get your bIg ass over to your jetpack and fly to the green and blue-lookIng planet that has a lot of grass on It  
CC: :I (well we all have bIg asses sInce we kInd of all have lIke the same body type but Im gettIng away from my poInt)  
CC: :I meet us there  
CC: :I Itll blow your fuckIng mInd In two  
GC: :6 okay okay jeez

CC: :I hey purple get over to the green and blue grassy planet wIth all the water  
CC: :I theres a certaIn someone I thInk youll want to meet  
TC: B4 mmmm...  
TC: B4 k4y

"Hey girls?" Asked Cobalt. "What's that black and red stuff over there?"

Even Fuchsia and Bronze were drawn towards this, but of course the former kept the shirt clung right to her own swimsuit.

"You know that I can just read Bronze's mind now and get the answer, right?" Cobalt teased.

Fuchsia snapped her head back in her direction. "I already had one of you best me. Everyone else would be the last thing I needed."

By this point they could tell that the 'black and red stuff' was a set of corpses and the bright red blood around them. Three, to be exact. Almost looking like... the agents. And all of them had an incountable number of claw marks, cutting deep through their carapases, almost getting their heads off, and a tiny clue was left inside. A little shard of the offending weapon.

Except _none_ of the girls wanted to touch that shit. Animals and... while not trolls, adult 'people' are two very different paint sources. Getting jobs at detectives just wasn't for them it seemed.

* * *

No response on the mystery player yet. None.

CD, DD, and HB had all been silent for too long.

Thanks to Indigo's prototyping, Jack had something resembling a method of flight. By terrible luck part of that scrap metal included a jet. A single one. Not even a jetpack. Controlling it was shit and the pacing was slow, but according to word out the only way to get to that land was the long way. Both the gates and, more recently, all transportalizers had been busted. Probably from the player herself. That was the only answer that made sense.

Getting there would take about... one hour. His estimate.

This wasn't the time it would take for that sniffer from the woods or that possible-stoner in shades though. Both Purple and Teal zoomed right by him.

* * *

\- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] -  
EB: hi rose!  
EB: i think you need to get jade into the game next?  
EB: she says a meteor just appeared above her house, and if she doesn't enter it will kill her like my meteor almost killed me.  
TT: Really.  
EB: yeah! jade even took screenshots of the game in case you didn't believe me.  
\- ectoBiologist sent tentacleTherapist the archived folder -  
TT: Is there an ETA for this extradimensional variant of an extraterrestrial rock that originated from your video game?  
EB: actually yes! jade's good at finding the distance!  
EB: she says it should hit her house is about ten minutes.  
EB: rose?  
EB: rose?  
TT: Shit.  
\- tentacleTherapist [TT] has disconnected -

Well, it figures. Having everything set up for two houses in a row was apparently too good to be true.

Rose suddenly logged in and began tinkering around with Jade's own house next, confirming that the former at least bought into arsenicCatnip's claims. Hell, Dave probably did too, making that four of them.

Except she disconnected at some point thanks to her bad weather, dropping the cruxtruder in an angle about ninety degrees from what was shown on her display. On the bright side, this meant that opening it could become more of a matter of finding something to ram into it. It takes a little more thinking, especially in about... eight minutes, but it'll almost certainly encourage less destruction.

On Jade's end- oh lord, _this really wasn't the time to get trolled_.

\- gargantuanAether [GA] began trolling gardenGnostic [GG] -  
GA: :7= running low on 7ime?  
GG: of course i am i always am how do you know the worst possible times to start trolling me?  
GA: :7= everything you have seen in johns course and you s7ill won7 believe 7ha7 were aliens from ano7her plane7?  
GA: :7= well more like from ano7her universe bu7 7ha7s kind of far away  
GA: :7= anyway i jus7 wan7ed 7o cha7-  
GG: no, fuck off  
GG: if i remember cc just "wanted to chat" too  
GG: if noy buying it. leave me alone!  
GA: :7= you can always jus7 no7 answer us if you ha7e us 7ha7 much  
GA: :7= bu7 since you wan7 7o 7alk i jus7 wan7 7o say 7ha7 fuchsia doesn7 represen7 any of us in any way excep7 looks!

Good. Rose was online again. More important objects were dropped in the room, and Jade prepared the best damn ram she could.

GG: anyone who uses a client that says theyre "trolling" is obviously full of shit  
GA: :7= wow 7ha7s a li77le  
GA: :7= ...harshish?  
GA: :7= i can see why fuchsia coined calling you "sal7y"  
GA: :7= i wanna adap7 7ha7 7oo!  
GA: :7= i should have firs7, i mean, because o7herwise wha7 7he o7her ones call me is 7he exac7 same 7hing 7hey call you  
GG: ...you have the name jade too?  
GA: :7= no7 exac7ly  
GA: :7= you know wha7 nevermind im sorry 7o bug you like 7his  
\- gargantuanAether [GA] ceased trolling gardenGnostic [GG] -

Alright! Rose was back, the kernel is out, the cruxite dowel was released, and it's time to get inside! What to prototype, what to prototype... that creepy doll in the lab? Not enough time to find that, wherever it's burried. Bec vanished too, for whatever reason, and there was just about four minutes left on the clock...

\- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] -  
TG: hey i know youre in a rush so imma make this quick  
TG: why is your demon dog in my house  
TG: im just leaving this open until youre safe and can reply bye

And that time would be soon! Jade found an appropriate, adorable flower pot that was given pity thanks to its current wilting condition. Run to this room first, get this shape, put that there, and... yes! There we go, all prototyped up and better. The future Flowersprite. Now all that was left was putting that drilled up cylinder in place and...

Shooting a pinata of Bec?

* * *

Another pair of jetting-trolls made their way towards the big meeting point, flames which were led by two of the aliens growing increasingly distant. Teal was the first to land, floating over just while Purple was about to come into view. Something was definitely on the latter's back. Something black.

"Sorry we're late," Said Teal. "Purple insisted on giving this guy a ride!"

Silently, Purple dropped Jack down before landing herself.

"Oh, no." Fuchsia began waving her hands in front of herself. "No no no no no no no no no you fucked up _so bad_ I can't even _begin_ to tell you _no no no_ -"

EB: hey, jade's in now!  
EB: i'm almost at my first gate!  
EB: does this mean we have to worry about rose next?  
EB: hello? ac?  
AC: :33 oh um  
AC: :33 yes i think no matter what catpuns rose should be sent in!  
AC: :33 its easier that way  
EB: what do you mean what catpuns?  
EB: *happens.

Jack silently stared at the corpses of the other agents. Then at the claws that ten of the eleven present trolls had on them.

AC: :33 wait furst at this point will you believe everything i say?  
EB: yeah!  
EB: you helped me with so much!  
EB: normally i don't like having a game spoiled to me but if it involves saving my life then tell me everything!

Fuchsia began laughing to herself. Uneven laughter. Disorganized laughter. Inconsistent laughter.

AC: :33 you see im really an alien  
AC: :33 and not part of the game either!  
AC: :33 well...  
AC: :33 thats for later nevermind  
AC: :33 im called a troll  
AC: :33 and im not just any troll  
AC: :33 you wouldnt just be any human but thats also for later

"Hey guys..." Fuchsia said, barely audioble (though crystal clear to Teal).

AC: :33 in my home society there was a story  
AC: :33 about twelve disciples from my world and twelve huntresses from another timeline  
AC: :33 i never followed that since it sounded like nonsense but the more i think about it the more i f33l like studying  
AC: :33 luckily one of my co-players came in with a church but...  
AC: :33 im getting off topic!  
AC: :33 all i vaguely know about the twelve huntresses and disciples is that they "ascended" or something and disappeared  
AC: :33 and because they s33med to be similar and had these strange signs around them long story short it started a small religion  
AC: :33 anyone who was born with signs similar to them was given the exact same name and considered a reincarnation or something  
AC: :33 and i was one of them  
AC: :33 one of twelve trolls named nepeta leijon

"Now that we're all here..." Fuchsia was clearly choking as Jack reached for his knife. "Want to see who the mystery player is?"

AC: :33 prophecies said something good and something bad would happen when we are all unified  
AC: :33 it would bring about the awakening of some angel from beyond our dimension  
AC: :33 that kind of looks like you based on the drawings i saw  
EB: how do you know what i look like?  
AC: :33 trollian has a viewport  
AC: :33 (trollian is what we use to talk to you thats why it normally says were trolling but i made a pesterchum account to get around that!)  
AC: :33 in fact i think the reason why my co-players were so volitile to you and still kind of are is because they think youll become that angel  
AC: :33 sorry in our society angels are these terrible things that lead to death and wastelands  
EB: we have angels too but they're a liiiittle bit different.  
AC: :33 naturally these weirdo religious people started trying to gather us  
AC: :33 from what i knew and i was right about most of the other copycats of me didnt bother hiding themselves  
AC: :33 but my best friend and i did  
AC: :33 in fact i did better than hiding  
AC: :33 i created a new alter ego

Fuchsia finally turned the shirt around. And, everyone except Bronze had their eyes practically propped open by an unseen force...

AC: :33 first i changed my looks a little  
AC: :33 because above all else everyone was looking for someone who fit a vague discription  
AC: :33 i didnt want to toy around with my hair so i made a wig  
AC: :33 with fake horns too  
AC: :33 yeah we have horns thought you should know that  
AC: :33 and then theres me going by a different name  
AC: :33 i kept my blood color a secret and yes we do have different blood colors  
AC: :33 so they would be looking for someone with a specific shade of green and theres a random chance that i MIGHT have it  
AC: :33 i also got a special-bred lusus by sheer luck that was made for remaining anonymous  
AC: :33 oh lusus is like this creature that is our guardian  
AC: :33 oh right i went by another name too  
AC: :33 yet for that matter another gender!  
AC: :33 because the prophecy mentioned that they were all female, so who would think a weird boy k33ping his blood a secret would be suspected?  
AC: :33 and... the part im not proud of...  
AC: :33 my old alternate handle on trollian  
EB: trollian?  
AC: :33 yes  
AC: :33 i didnt want to reveal this now but i n33d to confess some stuff sooner or later  
AC: :33 you s33 john

...At the lime-colored Leo sign that lied upon it.

AC: :33 i was carcinoGenetecist from trollian  
EB: ...  
AC: :33 note the word WAS!  
AC: :33 outside of my game group that me is starting to become DEAD!  
AC: :33 i only bugged you in the past when i thought you were the golden angel thing and i just set it up and my friend just found a way to link us to you guys...  
AC: :33 im even not using the face of my lusus to talk anymore! i switched to another unrelated lusus because...  
AC: :33 ugh!  
EB: you dropped the cat puns, but can you at least stop putting that face?  
EB: you did it pretty well when you were cg.  
AC: sorry  
EB: that wasn't a request! i was just wondering if you could.  
AC: what?  
EB: or if your user thingy has that face pre-coded into the start of every line.  
AC: it doesnt  
EB: i always thought it was weird that the trolls were more violent to me than anybody else.  
AC: :33 youre... okay with that?  
EB: not REALLY but if you have some reason for it like these prophecies,  
EB: and according to this game prophecies already become true,  
EB: maybe you thought i was the final boss of the journey?  
EB: speaking of which did all twelve of you meet up?  
AC: :33 actually yes!  
AC: :33 and nothing bad came from it  
AC: :33 or good for that matter  
AC: :33 the first time we did have to fight against jack  
AC: :33 but now thats not exciting  
EB: what do you mean "now?"  
AC: :33 im actually contacting you from near the end of our game!  
AC: :33 we just have the final battle against the black king left!  
AC: :33 so im gonna reveal who i really am just before going in!  
AC: :33 okay now my friend is bugging me to go ill talk to you soon!  
\- arsenicCatnip [AC] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] -

"So..." Teal began.

Jack instantly charged after the entire team after that, being deflected just in time by Indigo stepping foreward with her claws out in tow.

"Who... did... this." Jack whispered.

Teal was actually the only one who could even hear that. "I did!"

"What?" Asked Fuchsia. "No way! Lime killed them! This is the first time you got your big ass on this planet, and _they were already dead!_ "

Teal sighed. "It's called trying to take a fall for your friend."

"Friend? You don't even know her!"

"The poor girl had to stay in hiding or she'll join the rest of her caste! Sounds purrity cruel if you ask me! The last thing she needs is some freak charging after her!"

"Freak?" Purple raised her head. "Uh, that's not cool sis. Not cool at all."

Jack hopped from his attack and stared into that off-putting, perma-day blue sky. Blaring sound from nowhere revealed why:

"GOOD EVENING KARKAT SAYS YOU ALL FOUND OUT MY OWN SECRET! ONE QUESTION'S LEFT: HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE BEFORE THEY FIND OUT 'HIS?' HEH HEH HEH!"

Riding on a sprite that appeared to be a speaker with a Leo-sign barring outfit on it, a completely nude and completely grinning troll floated to the scene of confrontation. She gave an eagar flip off her own sprite, grabbed it, then yelled into the mic portion. "INTRODUCING THE ONE YOU ALL CALLED MYSTERY PLAYER! LOOKS LIKE MY TIME OF FREEDOM IS GONE, BUT MY TIME TO START KICKING ASS AND LIFTING THOSE BARRIERS OVER THE GATES IS ABOUT TO BEGIN!"

The new Nepeta gave an energetic point over to a fairly confused, head-scratching Jack. "IIIIIN THIS CORNER, WEIGHING AT WHAT I THINK IS A SHITLOAD, THE SOVEREIGN SLAYER, ARCHAGENT OF DERSE, THE SCOWLING KNIGHT, TWELVE. EX. PROTOTYPED. JACK. NOIIIIR!"

She jerked a thumb to herself. "AND IN THAT CORNER. WEIGHING IN AT I NEVER BOTHERED GETTING A WEIGHT FOR MYSELF! MUSE OF BLOOD, FIRST TO ENTER AND FIRST TO AWAKEN BEFORE THE KIDNAPPING, FIGHTING IN HER PAJAMAS, UNDERWEAR, SWIMSUIT, AND CASUAL HIVE OUTFIT ALL AT THE SAME TIME! LIME-BLOODED! NEPETA! LAAAAAY-OHHHHNNN!"

Clicking around with her sprite, she got it to play a (thankfully much softer than her voice-screams) instrumental version of _We Like to Party_. And began dancing.

 **GRIEF!**

Jack immediately got fed up with this new girl's shuffle. Thankfully, all of the other players could only watch in the background, so as advertized this was a one-on-one fight. Jack dashed over to her-

And found the limeblood several feet away again. And admist the bubbly LOSAF, with its oceans of soaped up water and loose bubbles in the air. And the other players were still acting as a "background" of sorts, still as shocked as ever. The sprite was teleported there too, playing the same song without skipping a beat. Lime was now air-guitaring. Another hit and-

He was now warped to LOMAM, getting hit with a strong scent of meat before getting a full understanding of his surroundings. Lots of purple-tinted blood and stereotypical 'steak' textures everywhere, complete with a sky looking like a rippling river of a color that matched the purple blood caste's. Lime's newest technique was to breakdance on the floor with no mind at all.

By the time his next attack sent them all to the violent waves crashing among LOSAS's tiny blue shores, Jack sighed. Lime still grinning as she shuffled did not help quell his anger.

LOHAH, and Lime moonwalked her way, sliding on the ice whenever it was convenient. She still dodged the heated portions - mixed in very uncomfortably with the ice, with gates of both the pearly and brimstone variety scattered around (many of which were half of both). LOEAM, she did jumping jacks in the thick forest which blocked out Skaia's light. LOIAS, and she forewent subetly for a split-second and just jumped on his head, warping them all from the metal-littered desert once Jack realized this and tried to strike up. LOHAP, she cheered as she attacked a harp, one of many instruments scattered the glassy world with note-patterns in the skies. LOZAF, and she was juggling frogs along a lone floating jade platform against the void of gray and tornados. LOPAW saw her _thankfully_ teleporting the team to a high violet peak not covered in toxic gas of the monochrome caves while spinning around on one foot for an indefinite time before Jack's next failed attack. LOPAG, she finally became a moving target as she skipped along the stained glass and over the giant rivers of liquid paint (which _wasn't_ made of blood for some reason). LOVAB's hybrid of black metal bordering rivers of electric acid and think pan-like tissue 'growing' from the solids was the last straw, where she outright mooned him.

The next attack on Jack's part still failed despite the double-speed. She brought them all back to LOGAF, with the catch that Lime herself was missing. An odd-

Jack was stabbed from behind, as odd as that sentence might be to some. Not bothering to turn around he sent his pseudo-jet into overdrive, flying off and as far away from the surface as possible.

"What are you doing?" The first words after the grief's beginning were from Fuchsia, of course. "Kill him! You have your chance!"

"Nah, I have a better idea."

Lime snapped her fingers. With that, the ring appeared just above her hand, the scattered pile of clothing was back on her, and Jack was sent flying to the ground. She instantly warped to his side after that.

"Hey. Tell the black queen to call off her army, kay?" She said. "I need some rest. Well, more rest."

"You know rings could only be used on Carapases, right? Why aren't you destroying it?" Fuchsia dared to take a step in Lime's direction.

"For friendly Carapases of course! We could get an ally or something-"

"No, _I_ could get an ally. I'm not trusting you with anything. You freak me out."

"Okay! But that still doesn't give you the ring."

"Yes it does. I want that ring."

"Well yooouuu caaaaan't haaaave it!"

Fuchsia made a reach for it - apparently learning nothing from Jack's 'fight' - and found her greener bloodswap twenty feet away from her.

"No way!" She cheered, "That was my Jack-battle, so it's my reward, and _I_ decide who gets it!"

* * *

Land of Light and Rain shined upon Rose, then shined again as she got another status update on how John was doing getting Dave in. Reading that was a bit of a chore thanks to the sudden change in lighting (and to lesser extents, humidity and having a single-prototyped cat sprite becides her, but mostly the lighting) yet this looked like it _may_ be more important than usual.

So she powered through.

TG: rose  
TG: you know how a bunch of meteors showed up to get you guys to get your asses in  
TG: well guess what  
TG: i got the goddamn moon  
TG: if it was blue  
TG: a huge blue moon just showed up and this egg still hasnt hatched yet  
TG: got any suggestsions

Well that at least explains why his latest attatchments to her house looked like they were made in a nervous, erratic frenzy. Something _huge_ falling to his house can do that to-

He sent a picture. And yep, from that distance it did look an awful like a blue moon. Maybe with some kind of vegitation? It obviously was not that good or that close of a pic to really tell.

Rose blinked. Did escaping a meteor in the nick of time really made her unable to comprehend the whole 'oh shit' in Dave being attacked by something that clearly isn't a meteor?

\- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] -  
EB: maybe the trolls aren't so bad after all?  
TT: Funny you preface your conversation with that claim since my last conversation with one ended with her wanting to sniff my blood.  
EB: well the angry one that made jade and i both super defensive against them just told me how to make a jetpack!  
EB: and that arseniccatnip girl? she's also one of them.  
EB: if fact, she was cg the entire time!  
TT: catGirl?  
EB: no, carcinogenetisist!  
TT: That was sarcastic, I was not aware...  
TT: Wait.  
TT: They're the same person?  
EB: yep!  
EB: she said that he was her "disguise" in some way because they were all actually aliens and their alien citizens formed a creepy cult because she and her other players all looked similar.  
EB: rose i think that's the best explanation since we're playing a game that kind of turns US into aliens for THESE planets?  
EB: i mean that's the definition of aliens, isn't it? not creatures that aren't from earth but things that come from another planet?  
EB: so she disguised as someone who was the opposite to her planet's "chosen one."  
EB: she also pretended to be a boy.  
TT: Usually on such internet encounters it is the other way around.  
EB: yeah, when we first met it took me some time to believe you were a girl without pictures.  
EB: i guess in her planet things are a little backwards?  
EB: that sounds like something you might hear on a backwards fictional alien world, where everything basic you hear about here is reversed.  
EB: well i have this jetpack now and i can fly wherever i want.  
EB: should i skip to the seventh gate?  
TT: Let me consult my sprite.  
TT: Unlike yours, he is capable of dialogue.  
TT: Which is surprising considering his appearance compared to yours.  
EB: yeah, i need to find something to prototype him with.  
EB: and fast.  
\- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] -

\- arsenicCatnip [AC] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] -  
AC: DONT PROTOTYPE THAT SPRITE!  
EB: what?  
AC: :33 *ahem*  
AC: :33 sorry ameowt that  
AC: :33 its just that prototyping is the kind of thing that can really sneak up on someone  
AC: :33 if you throw the wrong item in there then thats it! its irreversable!  
AC: :33 and it would be terrible if you could use a guide or something and its just this lame person!  
AC: :33 you n33d to find something really helpful to prototype  
AC: :33 and think  
AC: :33 or k33p it to revive someone in case they die  
AC: :33 dont just give it away  
EB: okay?  
AC: :33 yes okay  
AC: :33 be really okay!  
EB: you don't even know what i wanted to prototype. even if you somehow read what i just sent to rose.  
AC: :33 ill tell you about that later  
AC: :33 but first i think we should discuss some things  
EB: like what?  
AC: :33 like try to k33p the kernels open until later in the game  
AC: :33 and be sure to check on them occasionally  
AC: :33 kernels can pick up on the traits of what they were prototyped with so a harlequin doll can make them...  
AC: :33 i dont know what harlequins are but they look weird  
EB: trickster-y, got it.  
EB: i'll... find a way to look after the sprite.  
AC: :33 okay later then  
\- arsenicCatnip [AC] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] -

* * *

Okay either that egg was going to break _now_ and get him in or this whole game was just fucking with him and he's not going to be a core player. Because that strange not-moon is _close_. Close enough to distort gravity.

John told Dave to keep a good eye out on the kernel, and that's what he did. Tried to flip back and forth between the flickering white ball of light and the egg that still _would not break_.

Then Becquerel made his re-appearance, and hopped straight into the final empty kernel.

Well... he was going to float up and blow the blue moon (or whatever that was), at least, by the looks of it. But that still left a lingering question:

TG: hey alien  
AC: :33 hold on  
AC: :33 wow thats early in your session  
AC: :33 john already told you how to contact me?  
TG: yeah  
TG: what does it mean when a teleporting devil dog beast jumps into the seizure kernel  
AC: :33 yeah im already done with the game from my point in time and i already know about bec  
AC: :33 just know that you might have made the final boss unbeatable  
TG: oh shit  
AC: :33 im not joking!  
AC: :33 if i can remember everything bec sounded like a first guardian

Everything about that strange blue 'moon', from its visible surface to the invisble (from Dave's perspective) nasty scorch mark on the opposite end, exploded. The arc of it thankfully left the circle of city around him untouched. But... it pretty much wiped out the whole rest of the country. The wave of orange washed over buildings and fields and farms and John and Rose's former living areas as it converted all in is wake to scattered atoms. A baren wasteland, working its way over to Jade's island and finishing that out too.

And Dave _still_ hasn't fucking entered.

Bro dropped down from some place Dave didn't even want to question, slightly singed.

"Ow." He said. "Note to self. Do not try to chop a planet in half."

* * *

Six gates down, seven to go.

Along the rises of Cobalt's 'borrowed' hive, Olive took no care that she was dangling her legs over one of its many balconies. Just in front of the gray sixth gate. Just becides her being her equally matched sprite. And in her hands, the same false horns, wig, and outfit not matching her tastes. But it did match his.

\- catGirl [CG] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG2] -  
CG: :5 hi olive!  
CG: :5 hey!  
CG: :5 HEEEEEEY!  
CG: :5 oh wait  
CG: :5 duh! 5tupid!  
\- catGirl [CG] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG2] -

\- catGirl [CG] began trolling arsenicCatnip [AC] -  
CG: :5 yo olive, three, eighth of the hemospectrum, green, ms foresty, my favorite little firewood or whatever!  
AC: :33 um hi lime, five, ninth of the hemospectrum, chartreuse, ms lighty, my favorite little firework or whatever!  
CG: :5 i5 5omething wrong? youve been a5 5ecretive and 55555ecluded a5 i u5ed to be before fuch55555ia found out  
CG: :5 found out that i wa5nt a random troll but in5tead the LA55555T OF THE LIIIIIME5!  
AC: :33 oh im by my hive!  
AC: :33 i mean the hive on my planet  
AC: :33 i was just thinking about a lot  
AC: :33 do you know if theres a way to change what color the game gives you?  
CG: :5 haaaaave you tried changing "cg"'5 color 5o that it5 the color you have?  
CG: :5 i think the game5 connected to trollian 5omehow and it u5e5 the account you had active to enter what color everything becomes  
AC: :33 i was thinking about my disguise  
AC: :33 and how selfish it was to do that when you were clearly the One with bigger problems than me  
CG: :5 nah it5 no problem  
CG: :5 ONE OF US had to keep a secret to di5courage people from going to our hou5e5 and 5acrificing u55555 or whatever  
CG: :5 and it 55555ure a5 hell wa5nt gonna be THI5 free 5pirit!  
CG: :5 wait a minute  
CG: :5 were you talking to fuch5ia again?  
AC: :33 no mostly to myself  
CG: :5 well now fuch5ia I5 your5elf in a way i55555nt 5he?  
CG: :5 hmmmmm?  
AC: :33 no i mean i was just thinking  
AC: :33 and wanting to find answers  
CG: :5 BORING! ill catch up to you 55555oon  
CG: :5 maybe in per55555on you wont be 5o BORRRRRING!  
\- catGirl [CG] ceased trolling arsenicCatnip [AC] -

She wasn't kidding about seeing her '55555oon.' Lime instantly teleported right behind Olive with an alarming pat on the back, making the higher blood of the two jump up. Sadly, she was still hanging off from the balcony, sending Olive on a large plumet with her disguise props sent flying aimlessly. Lime floated in mid-air for a second before seeing Crabsprite take action, attempting to dart to his player but only managing to fly dead into the props instead.

With the snap of Lime's fingers, Olive was back standing on the balcony. The sprite's flashing had just settled down, revealing a new aspect to him.

"Oh no, Crab dad!" Olive cried.

'Karkat'sprite looked at his claw-hands with eyes that looked surprisingly... inactive. For someone so confused as to his existance, his lids were half-closed and his gaze seemed aimless. For only a few seconds.

"How is this even REMOTELY POSSIBLE?" Olive's new sprite asked. "AND WHY THE _FUCK_ DIDN'T YOU SAVE HER EARLIER? Before my crab part darted over out of lusus instinct?"

Lime gave a dismissing wave to him. "I'll answer both questions at once. Lime Nepeta does whatever the fffff _uck_ she wants to, bitch."

She snapped her fingers and warped away, leaving only the mask and his wearer.

"...So?" Asked 'Karkat'sprite.

Olive fell to her rear.

"Um..."

"You don't have _anything_ to say about this? Why I exist? Why prototyping my disguise worked? Why I can remember being worn by you? Why Lime's clothes didn't give another Nepetasprite?"

"Uh..."

" _ANYTHING?_ Say something!"

"...Don't... pester... John... with your carcinoGenetecist handle. It might make him lose trust in me. It's a miracle that didn't happen when I told him... well, when I told him I was kind of you?"

* * *

Okay, the path to John's first gate is _open_. Dave still hasn't found his way inside - he was just watching what remained of the Western Hemisphere asking "what the" but not fuck as by that point they were obliterated by meteors. Thankfully, nothing was above his planet. No meteors, and _definitely_ no literal blue moons. But this wasn't about Dave. It was about John. Fighting his way through underlings and climbing to the top. It looked like Jade was doodling along the platform by said gate at this point. Figures.

The Egbert made his break in the form of a starting dash which pummeled his way up the staircase and knocked past dosens of imps with a well-made arc. The same arc that, due to the ghost gauntlets, let his Sassacre hammer do the same to orges, rushing them off of the roof. Since entering the upper floors that were no longer exactly his house as he was familiar with it, John entered an even more wreckless mode. Setting off the explosive traps, sending a series of giant claw-like features swinging through the ceiling, and overall splattering his new additions with shale, oil, and the like. And that was before turning on the jet pack. With Olive's advice, he was well on his way to finally entering the first gate-

Then an imp warped in front of him, slapping John off of his rocket. Dog features. Sparking with green. This is new.

AC: :33 oh no  
EB: what is it nepeta?  
AC: :33 um ill look around hold on this will take me no time  
AC: :33 yeah your friend got involved with prototyping a first guardian  
EB: is that bad?  
AC: :33 you know the powers your friend saltys dog has?  
AC: :33 i mean jade  
EB: yeah, she said he can teleport anything and it almost unkillable  
AC: :33 well her dog was prototyped  
AC: :33 thats an imp under his effects and now i think things might be a lot worse than i thought  
EB: why?  
AC: :33 well  
AC: :33 its part of that dangerous figure i talked about that kind of looks like you  
AC: :33 the prophecy says that he had parts of an omnipotent dog  
AC: :33 this... MIGHT leak into our session too  
EB: how?  
AC: :33 i dont have that much time to talk right now but myself from after the black king fight will get back on  
AC: :33 okay this is present-past olive nepeta leaving right now...  
AC: :33 and im future nepeta!  
AC: :33 and yeah  
AC: :33 dave actually contacted me!  
AC: :33 and that and i talked to the other nepetas in between  
AC: :33 yeah he messed up  
EB: how do i fight a bec-powered imp?  
AC: :33 i dont know just k33p attacking it  
AC: :33 imps are kind of dumb so they might drop their guard at any second  
EB: got it!  
\- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering arsenicCatnip [AC] -

John inhaled the deepest breath of his life. Smash it with the hammer, like always. Ignore the growing number of Bec-prototyped underlings warping their way behind him. Ignore how all that training from before was starting to backfire on him.

Before he even got half of an attack in, he was met with a swirl of green colors followed by towers of purple.

Okay, this was Derse. He knew about this right off the bat. And was once again thankful Nepeta was around to give him advice, because otherwise it would have taken some time to build up to the real interesting aspects and he would spend hour after hour dungeon-crawling three gates over before going anywhere near this planet. That would be boring. He can't imagine why anyone would want to even play that, let alone _see_ it.

He took a bit of time to get used to the _second_ sudden shift of settings that happened within the span of this short session so far. And unlike the last time with his entry, he didn't have his house all around him until he stepped outside. He was alone, in this bizarrely-populated landscape. At least he had all kinds of possible allies and no sign of any imps!

He still didn't technically, but his mind was more focused on something worse. The familiar static-y sound from that warping imp was heard from behind him again, and turning revealed none other than the Black Queen. Hat-fixtures of a harlequin, vines slithering out with visible flower blossoms, a cat-like face plus its tail... along with, curiously enough, dog ears and that specie's own tail. John had to take a step back and ready his hammer.

"What are you doing here, child?" She asked.

"Y-y-you're supposed to be the second-to-last boss thing? A-are you?" He stammered.

"I ask the questions here. You answer mine."

For a second he was afraid that his sweat would make the hammer slip right from his hands.

"An imp teleporTED me hER-re I uh THINK?" John could barely give a conherent answer. "One OF your loy-AL mimimin...ions?"

"The underlings have no place in my kingdom. They are not my pieces to place."

She took a step back. "But they're not from Prospit. This means that this isn't a surprise raid."

John sighed, though with its volume it came off more like a single deep breath.

"Instead of killing you, we'll throw you into jail instead."

John couldn't even finish a "What?" before the settings around him changed yet again, leaving him in the middle of an equally purple prison with only a window and a one-way transportalizer around.

* * *

"So like, Rose said the seizure kernel thing let her dead cat talk. Can you talk too?" Dave asked.

 **"KSHHH KSHHH KSHHH KSHHH KSHHH KSHHH."**

 **"KSHHH."**

 **"KSHHH KSHHH KSHHH KSHHH KSHHH KSSSHHHHH."**

"Yeah I thought so. Hey you know what's a good idea? Seeing your owner. Why don't you do that? I think her planet's... right across from mine. Just fly away. Past that light glowing thing. You'll get there in maybe like twenty days or something assuming I even know how big this is."

Becsprite remained stationary.

\- gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]  
GG: hey!  
GG: the alien told me that you have bec in your kernel now?  
TG: yeah he dove right in and shot a huge dog beam or something at the blue moon  
TG: also im in  
TG: i dont really care about the details as long as hes okay and im not the filling of a moon-earth sandwich  
GG: i think hes okay?  
GG: but i want to make sure he doesnt get "overwritten"  
TG: yeah john already sent me the memo on that one  
GG: no i mean because hes my pet!  
GG: try to keep him alive like hes a regular player too okay?  
TG: sure  
TG: im not too worried anyway since this is like the garunteed key to beating whatever the session throws at us  
TG: i mean now the imps and ogres and dragons and magicdungs or whatever can teleport but so can he  
GG: i dont think thats how sprites are supposed to work... :/  
TG: well i dont think youre supposed to put omnipotent demon dogs in them either  
TG: did the manual say anything about it  
GG: there is no manual  
TG: oh right  
TG: hey ive been meaning to ask  
TG: how did you get sburb anyway i thought rose john bro and i were the only four with copies

* * *

\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] -  
AA: :0 hel10 there!  
TT: You are new.  
AA: :0 yes i didnt like the idea 0f getting an acc0unt at first!  
AA: :0 s0me weird guy with white text kept breaking int0 the system and started b0thering me!  
AA: :0 but he says he 0nly has a few c0nversati0ns left and he als0 recently st0pped breaking in s0 i think it will be 0kay!  
TT: What information or insults do you have to offer, newcommer?  
AA: :0 well i think after the new first guardian imp things j0hn g0t captured and sent t0 derses jail  
AA: :0 y0u sh0uld pr0bably w0rk 0n getting him 0ut  
AA: :0 0h als0 pay attenti0n t0 maybe ALL 0f y0ur surr0undings?  
TT: You are new. I would like some information about yourself, personally, and not the tired exposition that all other members of your group try to fulfill at once.  
TT: We do not need thirteen "guidance fairies." Twelve was enough.  
TT: And I still refuse to believe that AC is the first CG we encountered, but I am convinced that both of them are with you.  
AA: :0 but y0u still think were aliens right  
TT: Of course.  
TT: It's the only theory that makes sense.  
AA: :0 g00d

* * *

 **(Timeline: Doom)**

As mentioned before, Dave had since retreated back to his apartment when it happened. Getting through all the Captain America posters and Duke Nukem ads and... ugh!

Speaking of posters, one in particular made him cringe. Hank Hill. Standing proud, by himself. Hung over the center of the room like the main worshipping piece of an altar.

The underlings also avoided this room like the plague for some reason. While everything else had been covered in scratches, bites, and glowing possible radioactive material residue (thank you, Jade and her Uranium Imps), this had been untouched. As if Bro was keeping a watchful eye over the room.

Which is funny because when the hell was the last time that that happened? Seriously, Dave there without Bro himself, who owns that damn room. In fact, being here Dave almost lost that feeling that his only guardian went missing as with almost everyone else's.

Almost.

Becsprite teleported in, and right here was said timeline divergence point.

Some pointless bullshit arguing ensued. Dave tried to kick a few random ramblings into the goalie net to get Bec to leave (again), but Bec's wall of **KSHHH** was so good of a goalie it sent him straight to the endzone. Or- er... however that game went. Yeah, tennis. Dave's pointing, directing, and at one point trying to whistle Bec away (which as he learned made the problem worse) would go down in history as the greatest tennis metaphor ever.

Or, it would, if not for Dave eventually releasing a sword from his sylladex among his pseudo-rap, plunging it into the dominating Hank poster (He once held it away from Bec after seeing him sniff it out - this was actually where he would go back to, making a note that he was in the right to keep that poster away from that curious dog), and said image falling right into the sprite's appearance.

"Hi there. Hank Hillsprite, assistant manager of Strickland Propane. How may I be of service? Would you like the expositionary gas, my new favorite brand of kibble, or perhaps well-fine grilled steak?"

Well. At least he could talk now.

TG: jade  
TG: bad news and worse news  
TG: bad news is that i think i killed your dog  
TG: by accident i mean  
TG: worse news is that hes now the most annoying sit com dad of all time  
TG: sorry

* * *

And yes, as the clip in chapter 1 implied, things only got worse from there. In only a few minutes afterward, Rose's attempt to get to John's house and throw something useful into the Harlequinsprite only resulted in Nannasprite being formed. Jade likewise went through with prototyping the creepy Teen doll to spite the trolls who mysteriously stopped trolling her. Then the incident happened elsewhere, resulting in Rose's Mom turning into a nude catwoman sprite thing.

Teensprite and Hanksprite usually disappeared off, mainly to bicker with one-another. Any helpfullness Nannasprite had in giving exposition was neutralized by A: Rose figuring it out herself, or B: outright negated by Momsprite.

Then the deaths started happening.

It started with John's prison break being a colossal failure. He successfully got a new Strife Specibus in the form of Spearkind from breaking off one of the poles, and even killed and escaped his way over far enough to encounter Rose via her dreamself. But it still wasn't enough. With a tad bit of Rose's help he found a way to rescue Jack after his flop of a one-man rebellion. Yeah, that part about the escape being a failure didn't look like much when he not only met with two others along the way, but also got them to team up and at least knock the ring off the Queen. In fact, it wasn't until John tried putting the ring on that things went to hell.

It did nothing for him, of course. Yet Jack still gave him a bizarre stare the second the Queen lost her ring. Increasingly ready to pounce. Increasingly ready at the knife. Increasingly-

Before he knew it, John was met with a large dose of knife pain, his blood and life alike seeping away from him. And Dream Rose was met with a burst of First Guardian energy the second Jack actually got the ring for himself. Unluckily, an army of Dersites stormed the sight at the news of their fallen queen, but they were no match for the following burst. Once again seemingly aimed at John, a blast of unnatural green filled itself out through the entire mini planet. All of Derse was washed away, Rose's dream self fell to oblivion, and any remains of John were blasted within miliseconds.

But in the cloud of Derse's destruction, a silver lining was formed. In an event that put Real Dave to sleep, Jack spotted a floating, newly-formed God Tier Dave in the middle of the main planet's remains.

Jack tried to ignore this, instead shooting off straight in the direction of LOWAS. He was met with a growing number of Dave timeclones that attempted to fight him off with their bare hands, fending them back with a number of glowing vines which sprouted from his newest form.

Shit. There wasn't a weed puller in sight. Well, a sword would do, but for some reason God Tiering leaves you completely and utterly weaponless when it's first done. Hitting him wasn't an option, much less beating him. But... maybe going to him...

Admist Hanksprite's ramblings he did say something about the Green Sun. With Jack's sheer threat this common sense-defiance might be his only option if Dave didn't want to suffer from a Heroic death... a time clone grabbed one arm. Another grabbed Jack's legs. Both of them looked at the one from the past.

Got it. Become them, and then a Dave from the future who he will eventually become will-

Yep. Yet another Dave warped by just to fly straight through Noir. Now all Dave had to have already done was make a stable loop out of that...

All the clones vanished. Dave tried to stall the assault on LOWAS, but he failed. Reaching the closest thing he could to safety, the Green Sun's near area itself, he lept down to sleep. Then his Real Self, non-God Tier variant woke up with this to say to Jade and Rose.

TG: EVERYONE GET OFF OF LOWAS NOW  
TG: I THINK JACK WANTS TO BLOW THAT SHIT UP

Rose and Jade must have _really_ understood the urgency of that situation, because in an instant they were over at his house. In jetpacks for some reason.

"We took John's code," Jade explained with a smile. Rose, by contrast, looked like she was about to fall on her face at any minute. "I was looking around his house and found the card punched with it right there! ...Wh- why do you think Jack wants to blow up his planet?"

"I don't know what happened, but I felt this weird energy blast shit and suddenly I fell asleep and woke up in the middle of some purple debris shit. I was in these fancy pajamas and things were actually kind of ok for like two seconds because after those two seconds I saw Jack except not really he had this ring on him and all these dog features and planty things and he was missing an eye and arm. And he was gunning to John's planet at whatthefuck miles per hour, not teleporting for some reason. Then I figured out a way to escape him and I knocked myself out and woke back up here."

Rose finally started reacting again when she felt herself bumping against something. A quick turned revealed that it was something gray. A sprite. Of some... alien thing? Some kind of crab monster guy by the looks of it.

"Who the hell are you?" Dave asked.

"I'M- ...nobody, nothing. But if you want to give me a name to shout when you're looking for a cheap pawn to order, call me Karkatsprite."

"Where did the extra kernel come from?" Asked Jade.

"I'm from another session. They wanted to send my player here to check on you... and I tagged along like the trailing dumbass I guess I am."

The second he saw Rose's expression, he groaned. "What? Let me guess, you lost a dream self and you caught a glimpse of Hemrit, didn't you?"

"Hemrit?" All three humans turned to the new sprite.

"If you don't know who he is, find out the hard way. It's the only method that specimens with nano-level think pans can comprehend. Anyway, something here fucked up this timeline and before my stubborn player wants to reveal herself to you, let me show you how fucked up it is."

He floated around the corner to drag something out from it. A large window-like device.

"This is something called a wall. Dersites use it to monitor everything. But you can also warp through them, like this:"

He turned into a gray blur as he smashed through the plane. Jade was the first to follow, reluctantly, and Dave had to grab Rose's arm and lead her through as well.

One fall through a short black void later, and they ended up right by LOFAF.

Where CD immediately swiped the other plane from the quad, hijacked Jade and Rose's jetpacks, and flew off with double power.

"Wait... shit. SHIT! No no no, I need to speak to Olive- I..."

That's when it all happened in a blur. LOWAS, crumbled and burning, was hurling in their direction. Dave in particular noted something. That blue... those crators... it was all starting to-

They didn't take a direct hit from the planets smashing into eachother, but that shockwave sure screwed everything up. Rose was disintegrated instantly in the blast, Karkatsprite took a critical slash across the mid-section (whatever, exactly, could be equated to a mid-section in his case), with Dave and Jade getting blasted with the planet's own shrapnel. Knocked back further down LOFAF, inceasingly merging with the bluer Land (Land of Windfrost and Shadefrogs?) with both parties bleeding themselves out.

"Kiss... her..." Karkatsprite coughed.

"What really?" Dave tried to shout that, but in his condition it was more of a weak throat-catch.

"If you kiss a player while their dream self is still active, the dream self will take over!"

"Okay so Jade's is fine John's is probably fucked Rose's is dead what about me?"

He began morphing into unstable gray energy. Seeing that he had no time for words, all he did was give a jarred flip-off before exploding.

Dave sighed. Above them, parts of the Wind/Shade portion of the dual-planet cracked and boiled. Jack's business wasn't finished.

"Well Jade. Pucker up."

* * *

Apparently both of them getting kissed pre-death and staying that way after bleeding out counted as one of those kiss-revivals. Jade woke up on Prospit with the instinct knowledge that if John's dream self was somehow still alive, even if he wasn't, she needed to get the hell off of this planet.

As if to check, sure enough Jack teleported to her tower to take a look in. That's when things got... odd. There was a brief second where he looked to have actually calmed down a little. Within short time, he slapped himself, his eyes briefly flashed gold of all things, and he darted out to the other tower while giving the loudest, most hellish shriek imaginable.

A far smaller explosion rocked the tower John's dreamself had presumably been in, but this wasn't saying much. Jack's next stop was to head back to Jade, then he begun thrashing around her room while hitting himself. Hand fidgeting, he brought his one arm up to his mouth to try to slip the ring off. Instead, he pulled on his digets until a loud _crack_ was heard, breaking and ripping off most of the hand. Ring figner included.

Understandably, Jade had to take a step back from seeing all of that. Jack's hand didn't heal, but it wouldn't matter as Jade would later give him a drop-kick that sent the agent soaring out her window and smashing against the floor outside.

Ah, Prospitians have gathered. Perfect. Just gotta toss the ring to one of them and-

Yep, PM (not like Jade knew who that was) collected the ring and helped warp Jade back to LOHAC.

Now she just needed to wait.

Alone with a Carapacian.

Or not! Another alien walked to the room, looking back and forth as she got out a card-like tablet.

"Hi, I'm AC. Uh... did Karkatsprite die too?"

* * *

"That last part was the only part I really knew for sure," Nepetasprite said. "Since I was there. Everything else your doomed timeline self told to me."

Dave nudged at his own sword. "So we have to go save John or something right now huh?"

"Not really, no. I can finish up... that the other you _did_ make it back here from the Furthest Ring! He said it only took him a short time and he had to fight some big monster along the way."

"So about that Hemrit guy Karkatsprite said... you know who he is?"

This timeline's version of Olive slid into scene right after that question was asked, waving her hands in dismissal. "That's enough questions!" She said, "You know sprites aren't supposed to tell you this anyway!"

"So you do know. You're terrible at keeping secrets."

"Did I tell you about how I disguised as Karkat for most of my life?"

"...Not really."

"Well then I'll try to toss a story distraction with that! Ha!"

Nepetasprite shrugged. "You don't have to worry - I wasn't going to give too much about Hemrit either."

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

So, I'm gonna say something: I'm just assuming that lime-blooded powers are similar to First Guardian powers since the psychic trolls we've seen are already pretty powerful, and I can't really think of abilities more broken than the super strong telekinesis and mental powers aside from just flat-out warping wherever you want. Yes, I realize that once the lime-blooded troll's abilities are revealed I may have to change a lot about this, with more changes the more I write on this prior to the reveal. But I'll take that risk.

Again, chapter 3's rough draft is already finished, and I'm just going to look it over. After that there's probably going to be a bit of a hiatus.

By the way, in case this may come up (it kind of already did, but I don't really feel like saying when...): Yes, I know about the elemental associations with the zodiac signs. And leo would be fire. I'll just say that if all isn't revealed by the thirteenth (and final) chapter of this, it may be revealed if you dig around some of my other works that have this one certain tieing theme with this... that is, once I get them out, anyway.

Fun fact originally Lime was going to be naked for most of her appearances, in fact having her teleport her clothes back was a last-second decision. I decided, hey, it would get kind of annoying having a completely-nude character for most of this story. After all, Fuchsia already skirts the line so that's basically one slot-taker.


	3. Green With Envy

**Bl:oodswap: Guess Who's Getting a Spinoff?**

 **Chapter 3: Green With Envy**

 **Beginning AN:**

I'll say right now that this is more expositionary flashbacks and not too much may really happen in this chapter. I'd give an estimate that it's not until maybe chapter 5 that this story will _really_ start moving forward. But there could be a lot in 4. You might even consider this chapter a large change or something.

* * *

God this rain was unbearable. At least the hood wouldn't look suspicious anymore.

Deny as she might, Olive was going to have to step out and risk the cultists finding her real form eventually. That damn hair just kept naturally curling into a real "Nepeta" fashion (must be what made it so easy for the other Ones to be marked out and have such a huge paparazzi following - PS cutting it too much used to be out of the question but it's starting to head back in if this trip was a failure), clothing stores refused to sell her anything with an alternate sign on them (and lacked signless options), and she couldn't just try to edit the sign out without ripping the fabric alltogether. The only saving grace was the lack of any of the store owners believing in or knowing about that prophecy, though eyebrows were raised once the other Ones became more and more active.

Olive settled on meeting this One in particular, the others would not do. Her reasoning: Rust was nowhere to be found. Bronze looked like the type that would absolutely give her away. Gold and Cobalt might get into her head, Jade's living conditions made reaching her sans help or weapon very difficult at night (damn musclebeasts) and near-suicidal in the day, Teal was mostly an unknown out in a forest, Indigo looked unable to keep up a good lie or secret, Purple was just loose with secrets in general, and Violet and Fuchsia would require way too much swimming for a land-dweller. Let alone someone who couldn't even fucking swim.

This left the strange, warping cave person as the last One she could trust for step one of making herself more suited to public. Getting a disguise. It could be seen as her own fault, really, since Lime and her were the only two who didn't reveal themselves and thus the only two that were keeping the cultists from being motivated to start trying to kidnap. After all, why imprison people who can break out easily when you still have days, weeks, maybe even sweeps to find the 'others?'

By the mouth of the cave was none other than the message "BEWARE OF LIMEBLOOD" written in, fittingly, a messy splatter of colored blood. Still far more comforting than all of this rain. Though even when covered by the roof of the cave, the rain's effects were still felt in the form of its entrance being a downhill slope that welcomed a thin river flowing further to the blackness. Thinking about it the writing _was_ a pretty good way to scare suspicions. Autorities wouldn't believe it enough to investigate, since this kind of thing happens all the time. ( _Especially_ in the kid-filled Alternia.) Everyone else is too scared, though for those brave enough...

The next sign, "TRESSPASSERS WILL BE CLAWED!" might hold some truth behind it knowing this person. From observing and... admitedly, kind of _stalking_ her. Yeah. All those colors means that either lots of lusii species wandered in or trolls themselves were killed, so this might be something Olive had to take caution in.

Moreso when Lime seemed to appear from right behind her.

"HELLOOOOO THERE... Olive? Yeah, OLIVE!" She cheered. "Good to see someone as secretive as me! Deal right off the bat: You blab about me, I'll blab about you. Especially to the other Ones. I don't even wanna trust them, and after I show you a few things you wouldn't wanna trust them either. So, do we have a deaaaaal?"

"Deal." Was Olive's reply. She was too busy staring at her yellower-blooded self's hands. Those sleeves and pant legs were slightly longer than her's, as a result both hands and both feet were obscured by fabric going over it. Has she actually been through something painful, was that a stylistic choice, or was she just screwing with people?

It definitely wasn't the former when Lime slipped her hands out and kicked up some of the water. "It's pretty cool when it rains. You know that this leads into a huge underground lake, that like feeds sooooo many trees and everything. And it's that lake that I call... my hive's underside."

"This cave is your hive?"

"Yeah? What did you expect."

"...A normal hive? That's what I live in."

"Oh man you are _missing out on SO MUCH!_ Cave hives are undesputably the best! In fact, I'll show you around everything soon! Like, the gold pile (you should start one yourself!), or the climbing rocks, or... no, wait. Here, lemme show you how fun they are by making you fetch something you won't even need!"

Lime warped a flashlight to her hands and yanked the shading garment off of Olive's back, shining the light to get a better look at the hood's disguise.

"Wow. Pretending to be a bronze blood?" Her comment was, of course, directed at a number of brown stripes that decorated the cloth.

"Yeah, when I'm not buying anything." Olive huffed. "I thought an extra step and thought that the cultists would be looking after anyone that might be disguising as the most common caste. So I went with the _second_ most common caste..."

"Huh? I thought your real caste was the most common. Then jade used to be tied with mine for second. You know, the fucking."

Olive flushed greener than a palm tree's leaves, pushing back away from Lime as she nonchalantly spun the hood around. "Hey! That's nothing more than a stereotype! I'm not going to grow up to become some kind of pervy troll-magnet sex goddess!"

"Easy, self-deprecation. They used to say my caste was like that too."

"No, they said that... three greens were... but mine was the most... ugh." She held her head in defeat. "Can we change the subject?"

"Only if you wanna... FETCH!"

With that, the hood was instantly tossed into this rain river, and got sucked up into the back end of the cave hive. Olive could already tell that the lack of any furnature or belongings at that point (well, they were _obviously_ put on higher raises to avoid getting hit with water) was a bad sign, but she was sick of signs. Sick enough to dive down without thinking that if this plan went through she might not need to put such a giant hood over herself.

A surfboard spawned out of seemingly nowhere in front of Olive's face, and by the time she hit it and knocked it down they were already riding their way through the cave's depths. Olive obviously screamed her entire way down, especially when the trail proved to be uneven and left her hopping along the surface of the shallow river. But that was just it: Shallow. She could stop crashing against the walls and ground of this twisted water slide if she just stuck a foot-

Now having been too dark to see, she felt a shock from her foot landing on something when not expecting it. Enough of a shock to toss her off her board, planting her back-first in the rapid. And that's when it hit her. When she landed sans-board, she also couldn't feel the ground. In fact, as far as she cared, there wasn't anything solid beneath her.

After kicking up lots of splashback her ride came to an end with the greener-blooded Nepeta crashing through the surface of that lake Lime might have mentioned earlier. Or should she just call her " _The_ Limeblood," because after that stunt there was no way she would accept her as another Nepeta anytime soon.

Well, except for how you know that by the time ahead when they were playing Sgurb together, that would have not been the case.

Olive should have felt a lot less thankful when that light shone on her from the surface as she was. Yes, it meant Lime was there, judging how far under water she fell. Yes, Lime did in fact teleport underwater just to teleport out (it was easier than swimming, after all). Yes, most importantly, it meant Olive wasn't going to drown. But seriously, how much longer will she have to put up with her maybe-clone's crap? Both now levitating, though Lime felt the need to hold Olive by the arm instead of just telekinetically floating her, she began asking again.

"Olive. How many Ones do you think there really are?"

"I'm not even confirming that I go by the name of my blood color!"

"Oh come onnnnn, it's so much more fun if you answer! Also, you kind of did when I first greeted you and you didn't say anything about it."

With her other hand (again, as unnecessary as that presumably was for someone of her sheer power), she shone the flashlight somewhere down the lake. Somewhere that Olive had to turn her head to see. And there it was: A large temple, statue of a frog on top, a dosen poles circling it.

"Twelve." Olive answered flatly. "That would make one for each blood color, there was twelve Disciples - somehow none of them were limeblooded though - right now it looks like there's twelve spheres over there... it makes sense."

"The frog temple is a red herring. It's meaningless as far as I know. BUT there's a few things I want to show you - oh yeah first, have you ever tried a wig and fake horns? Yeah, this is totally your new disguise."

She tossed Olive to a dry spot among this damn location, still in inky blackness. 'Luckily' for her Lime decided to shine the flashlight back on her location, only now throwing an entirely new outfit on her. Olive tilted her head to the side when she looked at the sign, but it didn't last long before Lime threw several more copies at her.

"How- hey- did you- stop it! - get the signs in- QUIT IT! - gray?"

She shone the light on herself just to be visible. "Let's just say that when you dream, you can dream big stuff. Well, me at least anyway. The other Ones were all asleep and then some orange dog-monster that kinda looks like me locked us all up so even if you awake you can't _really_ leave. So! Speaking of the Ones, I asked you how many you thought they were. Well, check out what might be the only interesting thing in the cave. Of course, you're always free to investigate that temple as much as you'd like."

The flashlight finally left her hands and floated off to the distance. It took Lime a few adjustments to get that to be at the _exact_ angle and distance she wanted to. One finger snap later, twelve glowing spherical objects were warped in a slowly-spinning circle in front of her. Going clockwise they were of bright chartreuse, yellow, orange, red, rose-red, magenta, blue-pink, blue, azure, cyan, and spring-green, with the twelfth being a black that didn't glow at all.

Olive felt a small pinch from her head. Seconds later, a hair hovered in front of her, with Lime giving a teasing smirk. Then the hair flew towards the black sphere, which opened up, closed presumably on the small fraction of life, and started glowing a pure green.

"What?"

"In case you didn't figure it out yet, I've been hunting down the other Ones and taking their hairs _waaaaay_ more subtley than what I just did with you! I don't really know what these are but, and here's where my question comes in:"

A splash sound followed. Olive turned her gaze over to the darkness, which the flashlight thankfully turned over to reveal. Another black ball popped out. More splash sounds. The flashlight was moved to expose about five more. Then several followed, one seconds after another, and the sole light source flickered about until it finally settled back on Lime Nepeta. Who laughed.

"I found hundreds of these things lying around! I have no idea what they're useful for, and neither do you, but I _garuntee_ that compared to them that temple is useless by comparison. Oh yeah, and just letting you know... I somehow _knew_ how to plug in all of these hairs and into which sphere. It won't work if I give them the wrong hair. Or, any DNA for that matter.

* * *

 **(Present, as Much as it Could be Defined in this Context)**

"Okay, wait." Dave interrupted. "You're saying that the yellowgreen-you had these balls lying around and didn't know what the fuck they were there for? Does she still have them?"

The alpha-timeline Olive and Nepetasprite both answered at the same time. "Yes."

"Does she still know what purpose they had? Cuz my team hasn't heard of anything like that but we do have a frog temple so I'm worried that we somehow fucked up."

"No."

Nepetasprite started speaking on her own again, without Olive's voice to overlap. "So then Lime teleported me out. Later I bought scuba gear and started looking up the temples... that's how I found out about the code for this game..."

* * *

"PIPE OPEN YOUR AUDIO CANNALS FOR ONE SECOND! I AM BY NO MEANS AND AFFILIATED WITH THIS CULT _AND SHOULD NOT BE MISTAKEN OTHERWISE_! IF YOU GIVE ME TEN SECONDS ALONE TO EXPLAIN MYSELF-"

Olive got a fairly passive-aggressive "HMMM..." from Indigo, followed by a door slam.

Some events followed after that, most importantly that Indigo broke off the whole part of her cliff and starting tinkering with her hive to get it into Move Mode again. And Olive risked possible death by leaping after it. Here is where she slid out a sheet of paper, looking at ten similar-looking trolls in varying and different-colored outfits (by this point which of the twelve colors were excluded should be obvious), struck one off, and opened her trustly tablet.

\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling catGirl [CG2] -  
CG: :33 im running out of options!  
CG: :33 but i N33D to tell someone else!  
CG2: :5 youre 5till 5tarting with ju2t one right?  
CG2: :5 a5 long a5 that one or i mean One i5nt fuch5ia then theyll probably 5pread information about the game like wildfire  
CG2: :5 come on it5 not like me who you are tru5ting with your di5gui5e! i5nt the game 5omething on a much 5maller 5cale then that?  
CG: :33 no!  
CG: :33 this means the end of alternia!  
CG: :33 if not all of troll society!  
CG2: :5 okay okay youre NOT completely 5elfi5h about thi5 and prioritizing your5elf over the 5afety of our corrupt and bloodi5t 5ociety! braaaaavo!  
CG2: :5 you win a prize! and that prize i55555...  
CG2: :5 i get to tell you 5omething you didnt know before!  
CG2: :5 you 5ee cobalt live5 really clo5e to where youre at right now  
CG: :33 how did you know i picked indigos hive over bronzes?  
CG2: :5 i watch you a lllllot. teleportation i5 an awe5ome thing  
CG2: :5 dont worry about that  
CG2: :5 ju2t remember our DEAL  
CG: :33 yeah youll k33p all the dangers in check if i let you be the first one to get in  
CG: :33 but how will i let them bring you into the game while also k33ping your identity secret?  
CG2: :5 do i have to think up everything around here?  
CG2: :5 ill give you thi5: youre kind of lucky if the5e other One5 are a5 5tupid a5 you are  
CG2: :5 and that5 what they all 5eem to be!  
CG: :33 *sigh*  
CG: :33 okay  
CG: :33 i GUESS i can talk to cobalt...  
CG: :33 but why cant you just teleport and tell them that the planets about to be doomed?  
CG2: :5 and give away my blood color?  
CG2: :5 even if i wa5te my time and hide it like you do right now i have plan5 to make  
CG2: :5 you think that when youre not here all i do i5 5it around on my a55 teleporting meat to my5elf? no!  
CG2: :5 i have lot5 and lot5 and lot5 and lot5 and LOT55555 of plan5 you know!  
CG: :33 *CG SIGHS /VEHEMENTLY/*  
CG: :33 FINE  
CG2: :5 great! nice to know that youre 5till working on that karkat impurr5onation of your5!  
CG2: :5 well, 5o long! and remember: all are One but One i5 not all!  
\- catGirl [CG2] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] -

So it was time to climb. After all, all that was left to talk to about this game was Cobalt... and the sea-dwellers. And even with her disguise, reaching Violet's place was impossible. Lime refused to directly warp her there for some reason (despite having no problems teleporting her out of the cave several times), the currents were rough, and even if she made a sturdy enough boat (the idea of buying one could work as a good in-joke for her) the sea-creatures are even worse at sea than at land. And... worst of all... the other sea-dwellers. They wouldn't take kindly to any land-dweller below purple entering their territories, no matter how deep their hives are and how much she clung to the surface. Let alone some apparent anon-blood. She'd rather confess to the cultists than risk messing with the sea-dweller gangs.

Kids really are the worst.

* * *

"So you climbed." Dave asked.

"Yeah. That took a while." By now, Nepetasprite began licking her own new hands.

"Oh, and Nepetasprite. You think that orange dog monster thingy Lime talked about was supposed to be you? Like, in the middle of a fucked up time loop?"

"Maybe. Could also be Hanksprite. But... the other you didn't want to talk about him too much."

* * *

CG: :33 everything is set up already!  
CG: :33 just pick something to prototype!  
CG2: :5 ...  
CG2: :5 hee hee hee hee hee!  
CG: :33 what?  
CG2: :5 thi5 i5 purrfect  
CG2: :5 ju5t purrfect  
CG2: :5 you know i wa5 alway5 thinking about being a nudi5t  
CG: :33 i think all Ones like toying around with running around naked youre not unique  
CG2: :5 but to go through with it!  
CG2: :5 i mean think about it!  
CG2: :5 ba5ed on the game5 coding all of the race5 involved in the game are nude by default right?  
CG2: :5 except the carapace5 but you know thi5 game i5 meant to ju5t be played by anyone or 5omething acro55 different planet5  
CG2: :5 5o... what if it5 a lot more nudi5t-friendly than troll 5ociety i5?  
CG: :33 oh come on! your body is like almost all our bodies! just with a different blood color!  
CG: :33 if you go naked its like us going naked and i know that will embarass me!  
CG: :33 i already hate fuchsias outfit! its so tight and... tight  
CG2: :5 5o are you 5aying that you want to dictate my life on the 5ole ba5i5 that you look like me?  
CG: :33 well  
CG: :33 when you put it that way  
CG: :33 no  
CG: :33 but at least think of trollkind! what will they say about the saviors of our... maybe planet including a nudist?  
CG2: :5 p55555h  
CG2: :5 and what ha5 troll 5ociety done for me?  
CG2: :5 im forced to hide out and live like 5ome kind of ferral animal becau5e of my natural power5  
CG2: :5 for that matter what have they done for you?  
CG: :33 well  
CG: :33 lots of things!  
CG: :33 hello?  
CG: :33 helloooooo?  
CG: :33 lime?  
CG2: :5 think about it  
CG2: :5 and that5 5omething im NOT gonna help you with!  
\- catGirl [CG2] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] -

"Who was that?" Asked Cobalt.

"I was telling somebody else to set up their own game! This old... friend of mine, if you could even call her that, I just didn't want her to die. Get back to setting up _your_ game. Which Ones does it involve?"

"Jade is my server and Bronze..." Colbalt sighed, "is my client."

* * *

"WOAH WOAH WOAH WOAH WOAH!" All three people involve were caught off guard when they heard yet another Nepeta voice. Turning, they found Lime floating above all of them, her eyes darting between Olive, Dave, and Nepetasprite with a faux-stern expression. "You're telling your old story and you're not even gonna involve my perspective? Or what about how you first discovered the humans!"

"Hey weird likes-to-be-naked girl can it wait until we saved John at least?" Dave raised a brow. "Also, where did you even come from."

"We all came here but I lauched Olive first so that when the timeline doomed there wouldn't be too many Nepetas I had to save. Well, from everyone else's perspectives it should be obvious what I was doing when Teal became my server, but let's try to cover all bases here!"

"Okay but can you tell me _who the fuck is Hemrit?_ "

"You wouldn't like that answer. But trust me, you'll be ready some day!"

* * *

Huh. That was odd. Lime's computer sent her a notification... someone sent her a greeting card? Written in blue, this is what the message said:

 _"hi lime! i don't really know if i want to do this because then i know you'll send a 'confirmation message' and that guy with the white text will talk to me for the first time but um... tell olive that my new handle is ectoBiologist. signed, ghostyTrickster."_

She warped Olive over to the main room of the cave-hive, still soaked from the game of 'fetch.'

"Olive. Olive. Look. I think these are the aliens. Um... I might have heard Rust prophecising about them somehow. Trollian Gold just released today - unexpectedly early of its schedule - and it has this weird timeline feature. I'm gonna check it out. They use... something called Pesterchum? Okay, viewport's on. Huh. This ectoBiologist guy looks weird. No horns."

"Are they really aliens? Like, not trolls?"

"Ho ho, _you'll love this!_ They're from another dimension! You don't have to worry about who you are maybe! Just be dead-center honest! Oh, and doop... doop... super creepy spying doop, boom. These are his three friends."

Olive sighed. "I think this can wait... well, I'll still use my disguise handle, because it's more convenient."

\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] -  
CG: hi!  
TT: It looks like we have found yet another new face among the growing multi-colored troll force with such foreign customs.  
CG: another?  
TT: Your addition brings the total count to twelve.  
TT: Don't fool me. You may lack an emoticon, but I have reason to believe based on the habits from your two words and the 'trolling' tag that you are connected with the other trolls in our life.  
TT: Especially when contacting us at around the same time.  
TT: Don't you have anything better to do?  
TT: Where are you even from, Canada?  
CG: whats canada? is that a newly discovered planet?  
TT: I'll entertain your alien-based roleplay with a similar mocking answer:  
TT: It's a cold place above America.  
CG: okay...  
CG: wait a minute...  
CG: got it  
\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] -

Briefly telling this back from Olive's perspective, it was going to take a while to get used to this.

* * *

Fast-foreward a bit. Wow God it only took until _just now_ that Teal started dropping stuff in. About time.

Hiding things in darkness was one of her many number one specialties. Even Teal's super senses probably wouldn't pick up the strange orbs or the content of her wardrobe, and hopefully the game's own chance will pick that the portions of the cave she hid these in still count for the hive that will enter when the game starts.

As for what will be prototyped, well... maybe she should just keep the clothes on her back. Or not. That could change.

Land of Grass and Freedom. Fitting title. Naturally, the first thing Lime did was zip around the session for anything of note. Battlefield just consisted of fabric-like chess pieces moving across the board. Best not to get involved in that. After all, come next prototyping it will all be rendered moot anyway. Prospit was littered with strange chess people, boring. Olive might find that interesting or something. Same exact case with Derse. So... this meant it might be time to start questing?

Clothsprite was already useless, so for kicks she tossed this old loudspeaker and called it a day. Then teleported across that barrier of water that was supposed to surround her hive (and _pfft_ at that! It even looked shallow enough to walk across anyway, just that it would be very unpleasant). Yeah, great way to start a fun game. But what would make it greater?

Streaking!

Oh, and these three chess monsters tried to kill her. But, good luck finding a way to even _harm_ a teleporter! Who could even try at such a thing? Well, another teleporter maybe.

* * *

"Then Jack showed up and I utterly fucked him over. The end!"

"One last question, I promise." Dave sighed, as if Lime's own presense was somehow exhausting him. "When you girls were bugging us mid-session, you said that you were about to beat the final boss or something. How did that go, why are you here, and _how_ did you get here?"

"We did boring Sgurb shit for about 600 hours. Killed the Black King. I did most of the work. Fuchsia whined and swore a lot, because she can't watch her fffffucking mouth. Boring if you know how this game works. And know Fuchsia. By the way, she's the one who called Salty a cunt earlier."

Dave took a step back. Lime about six steps foreward. Standing aroud two heads taller, her huge orange eyes leered down at him and seemed to be burning a laser into his soul. These aliens can do that, right? One thing he knew for sure was that she was grinning rows of sharp teeth at him.

"Let me tell you how everything went _sour_. Get it? Because I'm a limeblood and limes are sour! Hahahahaha!"

* * *

The large, dark green hive symbol with one shimmering door in its front greeted all twelve players atop the frog platform. Complete with the clear knob, sparking with lightning.

"Any last words before we become not-gods anymore?" Lime asked. "I only ask because I can't really image what being a not-god like you girls shortly won't be anymore is like. You know, amazing psychic powers and everything."

Gold was about to raise her hand or something, but shot it back with a glare.

"Welp, if nothing else, as the self-proclaimed leader I'll get first dibs on that door-"

Everyone's eyes had been on Lime by that point, which made it more puzzling when they turned back and only saw a tiny goldenrod shimmer in place of the door.

"Lime, if you did that, I'm going to fucking kill you." Fuchsia stated flatly. Not taking her eyes off of this sight. "Even if you teleport it back."

"I didn't! I swear! Scout's honor, even if I'm not sure what a scout really is!"

This was when the hand emerged, soaked in what looked like a bright candy red-colored blood, with a large gust of wind blew out from this golden rift as well. The arm gained a green, bone-pattern tint before disappearing, with the golden rift closing right after. The wind stormed remained. In fact, it got stronger. And switched directions.

Causing head-turns once more the team looked the other way. A hazy mask of sorts was inhibiting recognition. There was _someone_ there, that definitely was _not_ a troll, but trying to remember or even grasp any details otherwise of that felt impossible. Large strain was brought. The only clarity came from the following scream. Not from the figure itself, but from within each of their own minds at once:

 **MY NAME IS HEMRIT.**

The mask was replaced with this being hiding itself among a bright ball of light, swirling and mixing between white and red. Rust in particular tensed when seeing the same familiar game constructs emerge from the beast - angels. And unlike the ones on her planet, they were clearly _angry_.

Before anyone could do anything else, Rust flung the gang into the transportalizer and dove in herself, just after the angel assault destroyed the platform. Which sent them to a lab in the veil. Safety.

"What the fuck was _THAT_?" Fuchsia cried. "I thought we studied this game inside and out! L-Lime! Did you do that?"

"No! Again, I swear!"

Violet took a step foreward. "I think it's something from another session. This sort of thing happens a lot. There's no big bad real final boss after the King."

"Ooh!" Added Indigo, "And he's name's supposed to be Hemrit or something? Let's look that up!"

The lower-seadweller put a hand on her hip. "With what?"

"T-t-those other things we see in the Furthest Ring? That's the only real 'not game stuff' I can see. If you ask random Carapases what a 'Hemrit' is they might say 'What is that?'"

"TEAL!" Fuchsia slamed her hand on the nearest table. "Teal Teal Teal Teal Teal Teal TEAL! You're a... Mind something, right?"

"Mage of Mind."

" _Mage_ of Mind. Couldn't you do something about that?"

"First of all, none of us ever really realized our powers." Teal frowned as she remembered this. "Like you, you never acted on being a Prince of Life. Second, I... could only think of fear when I saw it. Anyone else?"

The whole team nodded. Except Lime - she thought about it before lowering her head just once, regretfully.

They ran through a complex network of teleporters and transporters, before reaching something that had a view of the platform. Yep, it was currently an expanding ball of color. Mainly white. Fuchsia snapped her fingers and pointed at Bronze.

"You there. Thief of Breath. Take his breath away or something. I saw some wind over there."

"No, no, you're all wrong." Lime said with a laugh the fooled absolutely nobody. "What we need to do is take all of our planets and get the hell out of here. Leave the veil and even Skaia behind and locate the session in the universe we made!"

"How do you take a planet-"

The nearest Land to them (LOHAH) disappeared at the snap of Lime's fingers. A tiny image of it upon a card showed up in front of her, accompanied by eleven others. Soon the other cards were filled up with pictures of the other Lands. "I'll even give us a push into the Ring! Where I'll explain everything and ask for directions. Remember, we'll be relatively safe there, I don't think we're that crystal here!"

This is where the ball changed. Going purly by vision, it looked like a generic black and maybe purple thick gas. But the twelve Nepetas felt other sense in response to this. If you ask any of them, which Dave indirectly had been by prompting this flashback, they would describe this as a mass of sorrow, despair, obsession, inevidability, and most importantly _fear_.

Lime did a fairly weird motion that involved lying on her side and using her shoulder to ramp the floor of this safety meteor, and just like that the whole game team was pushed off and on their way out of the session.

"Now what?" Asked Violet.

"I already said. We ask for directions."

* * *

The meteor, generously given a lime trail coloring, had no persuers. Just a quick drift into the infinite darkness, only an occasional limb visible of the giants beyond.

Violet took a seat on the floor and began with the elephant in the room.

"So that thing took our reward. Our Ultimate Reward. That's... that's a little rude? I should go find something. Hey everyone, can I see the humans you were trolling?"

"SPEAKING OF RUDE." They heard Karkatsprite's voice. Yes, the other sprites were there - all twelve of them total - but Karkatsprite was the first to speak up, "LIME, YOU COULD HAVE TOLD US THAT WE WERE ABOUT TO BE YANKED FROM THE BATTLEFIELD."

"No time crabfreak! I needed to get us away from that 'Hemrit' thing!"

Fuchsia stared at the ghost-like beings. "And why did you bring the sprites?"

"I could ask why she brought Ms I'm too Good for a Fitting Swimsuit." Grumbled Karkatsprite. "Or why Lime brought herself, for that matter."

"Well at least _I'm_ important to _winning the game_! You're just guides that we don't even need anymore! I mean why don't you go full child-treatment and bring the lusii too? We're supposed to outlast them in the game!"

Lime instantly jumped between them. "Oh, I did that! But they'rrrrre... kinda hidden! In the meantime, I'll be catching end-letters and asking directions, so see ya!"

Then she collapsed and fell asleep. Most of the other twenty-three figures involved stared at her, with the only exception being Violet.

"Hey," She said as she walked back to this meeting area. "We can't contact the humans out here- oh. Did Lime just fell asleep like that again? Cobalt, are you sure you're not doing something to her?"

"No, I swear!" Cobalt stepped back defensively. "I think she's doing that on her own! You know how she even announces _when_ she's about to fall asleep too!"

"Well. Okay. It's not like I want to question everything Lime does, anyway. Or anything."

Bronze cringed when she looked out into the darkness. Specifically at the giant, darkened shadows of the deep.

"Okay this is going to be _fun_ then." She scowled. "I'll find a respite block and be in it."

* * *

Lime once again woke up in a box. In _disgusting_ yellow pajamas (though to her credit, she hasn't tried to remove them. Yet) and surrounded by a number of other Dream Nepetas. That orange... beast thing was still carrying them all around.

So, again, just fall asleep in this body. Get it right, and...

Yay! This odd bubble only appeared to this Nepeta once before. In the distant past. It even helped with some inspiration of some key items to Olive!

"Hello friends? Fur-ends? Whatever? I don't know how long it's been for you out here, but I'm baaaaack and I need some directions!"

She knew it was the bubble due to the pink barrier around it. That was unforgettable, if hard to see. Otherwise she was walking in a black landscape. Until things started forming. Oh joy, another mix of Prospit and Derse, with the yellow and purple blending together awkwardly.

Sure enough, there was a pair of feet in purple shoes right behind him! What a nice looking guy, dressed in a neat business suit and with his sign just on the sleeves... looked like a good troll. But like all trolls here, he had empty white eyes.

"Hi, Kurloz!"

* * *

Lime lept awake, which in turn caused the other players to jump themselves. "Directions achieved! We just gotta turn this... here..."

One elbow nudge later, the meteor briefly jerked. Otherwise it seemed to be the same.

"And we should get there in about twenty minutes! Fwew, I'm sure glad I did that, otherwise according to my directional guides we would have been drifting for over two hundred sweeps just to crash into ourselves from the future! Further-future. Theoretically. SO I think we can allllllllll give me a big warm thanks for saving us from such a close call! ...Right? Anyone?"

Indigo slowly clapped.

"Cool, cool, see Fuchsia? Indigo shows some spirit! Why can't you show spirit?"

Her only response was to cross her arms and huff.

"Fine then. Be that way. Just for that, see you in twenty minutes!"

Instead of teleporting, for a change Lime ran her way to the pre-set transportalizers, bringing the number down to ten.

"Now what?" Asked Cobalt.

Olive looked around a bit. Then tapped her foot on the ground. "I think we just wait."

* * *

"So we did then when we got near the boundries of your session I stopped the meteor, pushed Olive and Karkatsprite over there, and figured that we should wait to see if your timeline doomed or not."

"You still never apologised for that." Olive noted.

"Do I need to? Look at the you that just said that! She solved the timeline! And look at the you from the other timeline! She's a god dog!"

Before Olive could answer, Lime changed the subject and somehow got even _closer_ to Dave. "Hey I bet you're asking yourself, 'doesn't this mean the other Nepetas are around here?' Well guess what? You're in luck! They are, planted by yours truly _somewhere_ in the session! I'm gonna go talk to them right now!"

Then she warped away in yet another blink of an eye.

"Dog Nepeta. You can just, like, teleport me around until we find them, right?" Dave tilted his head.

"Knowing Lime I think she put them in one of the meteors in the veil. Finding them could take a while- we should focus on breaking John out of prison!"

"Okay."

* * *

The other ten Nepetas enjoyed sitting in the nice, conforting circle that was the remains of the front lawn of John's house.

"It's kind of amazing. How that car didn't fall off?" Asked Indigo. This got most of the Ones to nod in agreement, with the one exception (who else but Fuchsia) still not changing from her position. Both hands to the sides of her face, staring up at the faint glow of Skaia above.

Bronze sighed, beginning to pinch her brow. "Knowing Olive from what little we've seen of her, she probably thinks Lime went overkill and hid us in the veil. Even with this 'Nepetasprite,' _who I'm sure doesn't exist_ , we could be here for a while. So... anyone want to draw something?"

Fuchsia stood up, groaned, and began walking away. "You're all useless."

"Mmrp phr phll mmrrm pphhmpnt hrrmmp hrm?" Rust asked, again through her scarf.

"I'm pretty sure Lime already uncaptchalogued them and placed them around." Gold sighed. Her gaze instantly shot up, looking at LOMAM on one side and LOSAS to the other.

"I guess she even made sure that these matched with entry order. Well, I have a quest to finished."

Then she took off flying herself.

* * *

Alright! This was gonna be an epic jail break! With Dream Rose by his side and the Jack guy looking like he wants to form an alliance, right now John was about to- suddenly get teleported away from both parties and end up back home with an orange dog alien sprite looking at him.

"Don't do it." Said Nepetasprite.

"Are you... AC?"

"Yep! Sort of, I'm like her from another timeline! I'm Olive Nepeta Leijon, but just call me Olive!"

Both of them heard a door open.

"Goddammit _what_." It was Fuchsia. "What does it take to get away from you weirdos? Also you guys have twelve new Lands and we have four. Our sessions merged. Whoopie."

John's eyes were fixated towards her lower half. "Hey, your swimsuit's-"

"She knows." Nepetasprite stated flatly. "And don't bring it up."

"But-"

"Don't. She's already glaring at you."

John, actually, was glaring back at the sea-dwelling royalty. "WAIT A MINUTE!" He cried. "I think I know that color! Are you the asshole that insulted my friends more than anybody else did? Even when Olive was pretending to be mean, she wasn't _that_ bad!"

"Ummmm... I'm CC, if that answers your question."

"I KNEW IT! I could tell that even the other trolls had some kind of good intentions, but you're just... so..."

Nepetasprite sighed. "No, _I_ can tell about good intentions. Because I'm a first guardian sprite thingy! You know Fuchsia really is more bark than bite and kind of misunderstood so-"

"I'm gonna kick your ass!"

"But Fuchsia's also a lot of bite-"

John dashed to the swimsuit-glad troll that was currently crossing her arms at him. Even if he still had his hammers, he didn't need them. After all, he wasn't exactly going to try to _kill_ her, just give a swift deck to-

Fuchsia swung at him before he even knew it. John continued sliding foreward even when his head was knocked back and he fell on the floor. He didn't come to a stop until he was completely knocked out.

"Didn't you say this guy had movies we could watch?" Asked Fuchsia. "We should do that to pass the time."

"No, I think I'm supposed to help Dave out now or something..." Nepetasprite was clearly avoiding eye contact with her non-canine, different blood colored, water- and air-breathing self. Technically all three of those apply to Violet too. But Violet wasn't around so that might apply to her too.

Then she teleported away. Fuchsia sighed, and while still occasionally glancing at the unconcious boy, she flipped out a phone.

\- catfishCuller [CC] began trolling gologothasTerror [GT] -  
CC: :I hey jake  
CC: :I were comIng pretty close  
CC: :I I thInk were just one sessIon away now  
GT: Great!  
CC: :I see you soon?  
CC: :I okay from my perspectIve I wanna troll the you from your perspectIve just before we get to you  
CC: :I lIke a message  
CC: :I so when you get that message you can be really excIted and start lookIng!  
CC: :I and after that from my perspectIve Ill contact you way before that from your perspectIve so youll know how much longer you have to waIt  
GT: I still look foreward to meeting up with you and your feline kin  
GT: Twelve does sound like such a dominating sum.  
GT: In fact the more you talk about your friends the more it makes me and my group feel so small!  
CC: :I ...I wouldnt really call them my frIends  
GT: Oh.  
GT: I think im in a similar boat as you if you pardon the vaugely sea-related pun there?  
GT: Im starting to doubt if my other players even see me as a friend anymore.  
CC: :I aw  
CC: :I honestly I thInk you talkIng to me all the tIme mIght have somethIng to do wIth that  
CC: :I I wIsh I could help but all my advIce would sound hypocrItIcal  
CC: :I lIke lIsten to them more  
CC: :I dont make everythIng about you  
CC: :I be better for theIr sake and not your own to make yourself look good  
CC: :I and dont be an ass  
CC: :I but I thInk sometImes you need to hear that from someone who Isnt lIke all of those thIngs  
CC: :I and for that matter HEAR It not READ It  
CC: :I beIng In-person wIth your "advIce gIver" could help  
GT: Noted.  
\- catfishCuller [CC] ceased trolling gologothasTerror [GT] -

* * *

"Okay I got John out and I was wrong about Lime, she just warped everybody to John's house but now they're out on their own quests and everything." Nepetasprie clarified. "Except Purple. She's... for some reason, she went to your house."

"I thought your species called them hives." Pointed Dave, just as he cut down another imp and worked over to his first gate. It was good to have John back building.

"Well yours call them houses. And since we're talking about your structures I think we should use the word houses!"

"That makes sense. So... now what, I mean I think with you having first guardian abilities this session is easy as hell. Can we even do anything from here?"

He stopped when he noticed another One fly right on his rooftop thanks to one of those fancy orange-red jetpacks. Or, what served as the rooftop after John's repeated building. This one was... what was it, Purple? Like she said?

"Hey." Was all she said.

"Um, hey. You're TC right?"

"Yeah I'm her! TC."

"I think we're supposed to help each other win the session or something?"

"That would be the most helpful idea... kind of. It's neat. Yeah."

"Right. So you wanna team with me on my Land or should I team with you on your Land or should we just go fuck this game and go after each other's Land."

Taking off her jetpack, Purple instantly plopped on the ground back-first. Fortunately, Rust jetted her way to LOHAC as well.

"Yeah..." Said Nepetasprite, starting to float back. "Purple and Rust might be... kind of hard to get an answer out of. Well, I think I need to do some things so... I'll be right back!"

She teleported away.

"You're Rust and she's Purple?" Shrugged Dave.

"Mprh mff hrmph."

"What?"

Rust blinked in confusion for a moment. Okay... she's taking out some computer-like thing-

\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG] -  
AA: :0 s0rry  
AA: :0 s0me pe0ple cant understand my accent  
AA: :0 even with0ut the scarf  
TG: i didnt even hear this accent through the scarf so ill just take your word for it  
AA: :0 y0u d0nt have t0!  
AA: :0 i c0uld teach y0u ab0ut h0w i speak 0r s0mething like that!  
AA: :0 y0u can listen and get a g00d idea!  
TG: got it  
TG: its kinda weird i never pestered someone who was right next to me before  
TG: first time for everything  
AA: :0 i kind 0f like saying that t00  
AA: :0 kind 0f  
AA: :0 just s0me fun little trivia!  
TG: right so youre aa and the other one is tc  
TG: where the fuck is cc jade wants to kill that asshole  
AA: :0 ...  
AA: :0 d0nt be T00 hard 0n her i mean...  
TG: okay got it super sad backstory to back her up  
AA: :0 n0, n0t quite  
AA: :0 nevermind  
AA: :0 just try n0t t0 kill any 0ther players while y0u still can until maybe s0me later part  
TG: what  
AA: :0 i mean  
AA: :0 its really weird  
AA: :0 back 0n alternia i drew this c0mic thing  
AA: :0 and the main character turned 0ut t0 100k a 10t like y0u  
AA: :0 i think it may be my d0rmant "page 0f time" p0wers c0ming t0 activate and it was really telling the future  
AA: :0 let me sh0w y0u a sample  
AA: :0 fr0m v01ume tw0  
AA: :0 the first v01ume was m0re ab0ut us  
\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] ceased trolling turntechGodhead [TG] -

Using some strange spirit-communication thing, she managed to withdraw a large pile of pages hastly stapled together. Dave picked them up.

And promptly lost a lot of urge to sleep. It was pretty uncanny how accurate everything was to his own experiences - well, he was depicted as having overly large and sparkly eyes and looked way more feminine than he actually was, but still. The comic started with him in his room. He got an alert of a reality-changing game. Comic-him was even wearing the same outfit. A blue moon was about to crush down on him. He played the game, which involved throwing something into a kernel - in this case, his best friend's omnipotent dog payed him a visit and prototyped himself - and rose up in ghost form. An alternate variation of him came in to prototype a character that, he figured, was introduced earlier in the comic. Rust even went the extra step in not making him a troll. Of course the text was written in an alien language but he could still figure everything out. He started to shake when he saw the schoolgirl with the double-bun hair (otherwise the troll schoolgirls that served as the stars looked exactly alike - this wasn't because they were obvious self-inserts of the Ones, since this version of them intended them to be from different families and everything. At least, that's what he figured, since they all had different signs while the three Nepetas he saw all bore the same logo. Were the Nepetas themselves sisters or something? He still hasn't gotten a straight answer on that) give the obvious Dave-guy a sample of her manga. Mainly because there was still a large stack of pages left. And the panel afterward showed said schoolgirl tucking away some additional pages into her sylladex.

"Hey Rust." Dave looked up. Sure enough, she was doing just that. Looking at another stack of pages.

From Rust's point of view, of course these were written nearly a sweep before the game. She had no idea that they were prophetic. Or that this was a really odd way of giving up her secrets. Using the future-telling manga to find out that its own author is hiding something sounded like a good plot-point at the time. Not so much when it happens to you in real life.

Just as it was written, Dave lept on her and managed to wrestle out some of these samples. He attempted to give a quick look through some of the future pages - there was one of him leaping off a platform, one of the Nepetas (couldn't tell which - it was uncolored and, again, all of them looked alike save mild hairstyle variations and this panel, even through a glimpse, was too closed-up to tell which hair style she had) grinning wildly, and- no.

No. No no no no no.

"What was that one at the very end?" He asked. Dave's heart felt like it stopped when he looked at that. Rust didn't give a verbal answer, instead going back to Trollian.

AA: :0 i didnt want y0u t0 kn0w  
AA: :0 i wanted the sample i gave t0 end 0n a happy n0te  
AA: :0 n0t this  
AA: :0 i think this was the last page that came fr0m my pr0phecies  
AA: :0 it was the last twist that "felt right"  
AA: :0 everything after that... i was just j0tting w0rds d0wn  
AA: :0 i wanted t0 und0 it s0 i did  
AA: :0 but...  
AA: :0 thinking ab0ut it it didnt feel like the right 0pti0n  
AA: :0 just  
AA: :0 a fan ficti0n 0f reality

She finally used a psychic hold on Dave. He couldn't move worth a shit anymore, and was forced to uncomfortably float in the air as Rust dug through her collection of captcha'd pages. He would have compared this to one of John's movies but that really wasn't appropriate and really not on his mind. The final volume. Final page. Sure enough, it depited the conclusion of some conflict involving Dave himself. A figure that, in this particular page, was depicted either from the shadows or as a quick blur or obscured from the angle. All except that second to last panel, the bottom left corner of the paper. The blur moved to Dave in the panel before that. But he stabbed it. And what he stabbed was almost certainly John Egbert himself. The final one showed John with wide, teared eyes.

AA: :0 c0me t0 think 0f it i sh0uld have kn0wn  
AA: :0 the page i gave y0u sh0wed y0u finding 0ut ab0ut that  
AA: :0 if it makes anything better thats n0t really j0hn!  
AA: :0 hes p0sessed 0r s0mething!  
AA: :0 assuming my c0mic is 100% accurate...  
TG: i need some time to think  
AA: :0 me t00  
TG: for the record i still dont fully believe that youre telling the future  
TG: and if that was a prank then its not funny  
AA: :0 i get it  
AA: :0 by the way d0nt sh0ve me like that its rude  
TG: dont tell a person you just met that theyre gonna kill their friend  
TG: and dont hold me up with psychic powers like that  
AA: :0 telling pe0ple that a friend might die is c0mm0n c0urtesy 0n alternia  
AA: :0 is sh0ving pe0ple c0mm0n in y0ur planet?  
AA: :0 i st0pped y0u s0 that y0u w0uldnt d0 that  
TG: um shit  
TG: well you managed to turn me into the bad guy here  
TG: again i need to think about this

Rust flew back off. Dave flipped through the mini-book yet again. And yep. He looked a lot like that. Standing on the rooftop. Alone. Until one of the schoolgirls hugged him from behind.

Thankfully it was Purple. And now he got it. Slightly messy hair meant that the schoolgirl was Purple. Bun style decoration was Rust. Ten more styles to figure out then.

"Just to let you know you can totally stop hugging me anytime you want." Dave told Purple.

* * *

TA: :22 2o why are the girl2 of your race named after color2 anyway?  
TT: What?  
TA: :22 i mean "ro2e"  
TA: :22 and your friend we call 2alty  
TA: :22 i think her real name wa2 jade but i hone2tly cant remember anymore i really didnt care for her  
TA: :22 it would make 2en2e though!  
TA: :22 we call her 2alty to differentiate her with our jade!  
TT: You have the names correct but everything else was a false assumption.  
TT: Sorry if I seem to be on the unresponsive side lately. I've been preoccupied with John's situation.  
TA: :22 john is overrated let2 not talk about him  
TT: Huh?  
TA: :22 ...how i2 your que2t going? thi2 i2 kind of all we can focu2 on right now  
TT: Terrible.  
TT: I need something to prototype my sprite with.  
TA: :22 huh  
TA: :22 lime 2aid that in the other timeline you got your naked lu2u2 human or 2omething prototyped while you werent looking  
TT: Wait a minute.  
TT: That means.  
TT: And she's still here.  
TT: Oh god.  
TT: OH GOD.  
\- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering twinAwesomepaws [TA] -

Rose ducked away from her laptop and was immediately placed on high alert. Tier-1 Jaspersprite was still the only ghostly sign by her house. Meowing something, the same comments about fish. Was this the game's way of lightly nudging her on the theoretical four-player session without the interruption of the trolls?

While she was expecting a naked catgirl, the one she didn't have in mind teleported to her room instead.

"Hello Edgy Cat!" Lime said, tipping an imaginary hat in her suddenly-imaginary outfit. It became real shortly after (really she just warped her clothes back on her), if only for the sake of that particular head-screwing joke. "How's it going?"

"Lately unpleasant. It only got worse when you showed up."

"I know, I get that a lot. So um... you seem to be looking out for something? Something you don't want to see? Something like... let me try to read your mind! Because that's not really a troll power of mine, but it is something I like to trick people into thinking it is! Let's see if I can fool you even though I just said I can't read minds! Hrm... you're scared. Everyone is but me, I mean, but you're scared of... an ancestor of some kind! Someone with your connected deep bond! Someone who doubled as a lusus!"

"Where are you going with this?"

Lime had one hand up to her own head and shut eyes at this point, trying to get the 'read.' "No no, don't tell me anything. She's also undressed just like I was just then. And... shares some other trait. Felineness? And is your sprite! There, you're afraid of seeing your lusus-ancestor hybrid that's been prototyped with a sprite naked. Am I right?"

"Depends on what a lusus is."

"No, this was the part where you ask me how I did that, and when I respond that I was spying on Gold's computer from a distance and read the conversation from where the translator had her language. Not to say translating English to Alternian is _hard_ or anything, seeing as the two are surprisingly similar aside from what characters they use and 'friend' and 'enemy' sharing a word."

"In that case, go away."

"Why should I? I am by far the most powerful person in the session even _if_ someone else god-tiers before I do! And on top of that, for some reason I've been blessed with the easiest planet across our games! (But with the hardest denizen.) There's really no reason why I can't just relax and wait for all of you to grow up, unless... say... my loud talking summoned your weird lusus-cestor into the room in the first place! Bye!" The part in parenthesis was whispered by her, just _barely_ audioble by Rose.

Just as she teleported yet again, Rose heard a fairly familiar voice:

"Rose? You alive again or something?"

Shit shit shit _**shit.**_

* * *

Going through an elevator on LOCAH was already a pain as it is, since it's hot as hell.

It's even worse when you have a comic showing that you'll kill some form of your best friend, and when you're with a weird girl obsessed with playing around in her old pond that deeply missed said pond too despite being able to work her way back there. And is generally an oddball compared to the other Nepetas.

Thankfully, Dave's stop was coming up soon.

Once that happened, it was another round of questing for him. For once, the Nepetas seemed to have gone silent, and even his tag-along Purple wasn't saying anything specifically to him. Nice. He guessed. It was more ogres, liches, and basilisks to fight through. Purple didn't appear to contribute much at first glance. This wasn't much of a problem until a thought came into his head.

"Hey. Purple." He said, "Didn't all of you level up as high as possible or something? Because you... you don't look like the fighting type."

"Oh, I prefer to fight when I'm scared and everything..." She gave her answer in a voice just _barely_ high enough to be heard, "I think this is fighting with fear and involves using the Rage aspect somehow?"

"I don't know how fear counts as Rage but-"

"No, I was led to think 'rage' is 'emotion' or something. But that's just a theory."

"So what are you like, afraid of and what brings this fear?" Dave entered another ready stance, sword out, as the number of underlings apparantly thinned.

"My old society. Mostly. The longer I'm away from it the calmer I feel. Like, actually calm. Not just trying to hide myself."

"What?"

"Back on Alternia, my blood caste-color was... tied to some killer clown cult? I didn't like that. It sounded mean. But the higher up, they... let's talk when we don't have to fight-"

Purple interrupted herself. Dave did and said nothing. She disappeared in the blink of an eye with little more than a shadowy outline left behind for a split-second. And the instant following, all surrounding underlings collapsed to the floor. And exploded into the various grist that could be found dotting LOHAC.

"Did you just turn into my Bro or something?"

"Whose that meow?"

"My broth- uh... I think you guys call them looses. I know how it's spelt. Just not how to pronounce it."

"Your lusus?"

"Yeah that's the thing. He can move really fast. Hell as soon as I got here he sprang with the quickness of lightning and disappeared. I can't find him. Did you have trouble finding your lusus?"

"I always did." She looked at the floor. "She was always out in the ocean. The only time she returned was when the game started and... she went right back out to swimming along the blood and liquid meat lakes my Land has. It leaves me kind of lonely, you feel?"

"I uh, 'feel.'"

With that, she collapsed to her knees for no apparant reason. At least, no reason Dave could find.

"Yeah, almost like... I think I need a shoulder."

Dave sighed, leaning in to her. "And I think I know where you're going with this."

* * *

Well, there was already one known "second Jade" in the form of a dream self. A "third Jade" (and technically a fourth, considering _her_ dream self) seemed inevidable at this point, but not in this exact way.

Jade, the human, stared at the jade-blooded Nepeta in front of her for quite some time.

"Why did you pick the word 'Salty' for my name?" Human-Jade flatly asked.

"Um..." Troll-Jade hopped back a little before giving a proper answer. "That's from your first conversation with Fuchsia - THAT I HAVE NO PART IN, just please don't blame me for that okay?"

* * *

CC: :I so  
CC: :I youre one of the "humans" arent you  
CC: :I say somethIng that wIll make talkIng to you worthwhIle  
GG: oh youre one of the trolls?  
GG: rose called you "quirky" and dave thought he could keep you away  
GG: john never talked to you yet!  
GG: so what do you have to say to me?  
GG: are you gonna me mean? both rose and dave warned me about that  
CC: :I depends  
CC: :I say somethIng  
CC: :I anythIng  
CC: :I I want to hear you talk  
CC: :I or see what you have to type, more accurately  
GG: um hi?  
GG: why do you keep bothering my friends anyway?  
CC: :I because theyre responsible for fuckIng everythIng up  
CC: :I mostly the last guy that we stIll cant contact for some reason  
GG: leave john out of this!  
CC: :I well  
CC: :I gIve me a reason why  
GG: i have to give you a reason why you shouldnt be rude to my friends?  
CC: :I you know what forget It youre untalkable  
CC: :I Im gonna stop botherIng wIth you and get on wIth the boss already  
CC: :I I dont care what the other Ones say you and your frIends are all just cunts and can rot away  
CC: :I bye  
GG: ugh! fuck off!  
CC: :I jeez youre also so aggressIve  
CC: :I waIt a mInute  
CC: :I they say salt crystalIzes In veIns from anger  
CC: :I waIt I got It  
CC: :I we already have a jade and your name Is jade too so...  
CC: :I If I EVER need to see you agaIn or even refer to you Ill just call you salty from now on and hope that stIcks  
CC: :I okay Ill leave now and try not to speak to you agaIn

* * *

"Fuchsia, yeah, what's wrong with her?" Asked the human-Jade.

The instance of Nepeta immediately sighed. "She swears it's because of her blood color making her more aggressive or because she's facing the stress of being the next empress, but I don't really buy either of them. She might be spoiled or something."

"The next empress?"

"Yeah, it's part of our blood color system thingy. Trolls in her blood color are very rare, and they're considered the rulers of our empire or something like that. Things got confused since our last empress... was kind of... well, she wasn't around very long, started some controversial plans, and vanished with eleven other trolls said to look like her but had different blood colors."

"Kind of like you do? Is that a common troll thing?"

"Nope! That's why I think they were our ancestors! Well... they say one of them had a mutated blood color, and Lime doesn't, so that complicates things... but I still have a strong hunch that they're our ancestors!"

"Like your great great grandparents?"

"Er... no. Not really, whatever those are. Oh, I do have more evidence for it though: They also had the same signs as us and wrote in... these journals, supposedly. Those were just rumors. But on our planet they were the kind of rumors you could get killed over! So that meant that they might hold some truth to them!"

"...Wow."

"Hey, look out! Behind you!"

As Jade Nepeta had warned, there was in fact an army of ten liches right behind both of them at the moment.

Welp. Time to get the gun out, again. And see what this similarly-nicknamed Nepeta has to offer on her side of the battle.

Fighting on her part, sadly, seemed to be limited to the usual claws and her stumbling around awkwardly. Jeez. Just a few snipes on Jade's part while Jade Nepeta tripped around seemed to do the trick, killing two enemies and starting the other eight on a path of being driven away.

Jade wasn't going to stop at that, however. They needed that damn grist. Also killing these things was easy enough as it is anyway. A few more snipes, a few more times, and they dropped dead.

"Sorry about that..." said the respective Nepeta, "I _think_ I _might_ have hidden vampire powers or something, but if I do I haven't figured it out yet..."

"Why do you think that?"

"Again. The high-ups will kill you if you talk too much of it."

"Oh. They must be bad at keeping secrets then."

"Not if they're good at killing."

With her own building pile of grist, exceeding over her own co-players, Jade might have been able to make a connection with that.

* * *

Rainbows of catwomen. Rainbows everywhere.

Those were the first two sentences most people would use to describe Jake's room (Roxy was definitely one that wouldn't, but hey, for this context 2/3 of his definitely human friends would still count as "most"). Posters littering the walls were a given - it was like that last time. Last time she was over, Roxy couldn't even tell what colors the walls were. Jake himself forgot-

Oh, yes. Roxy and Jake do live in the same time period here. But that's all that's a given. No garuntees about Dirk.

-Jake himself forgot what color they were intended to be. Well, that's why one of his friends is here to help him out!

Or, more like a creation of a friend. She (the creation) signaled herself through a flash of lime. How cute.

So the chase was on. Jake Cipher, following after the adorable cat-like Limebot.

Being cryptic as always, Limebot (or, Lime through Limebot) led him down the staircase and out into the vast jungle that was the setting of his island. Okay, he could still keep track of her. Barely. Rushing after the robot was always an unfair advantage on her side, given that she could not only fly, but fly _at high speeds_ that seemed a bit unnecessary for a pen-pal bot to go at.

"Lime Nepeta!" He called after the robot. "Lime Nepeta? Could you slow the bot down?"

She grinded the bot to a halt, something he was thankful for but wasn't really expecting. Since he was still in a running motion by the time he reached the bot's location, he tripped on a vine, and gave his head a firm slam against its foot. The robot didn't even budge.

"What is it?" He asked. He got his response in the form of his computer-troll ears beeping.

CG: :5 heyyyyy  
CG: :5 5o you might wannaaaaa... look up in your 5ky right now  
GT: Okay.

Yep. That was odd.

Some floating, glimmering golden light. He could swear that he _should_ be able to get a closer look, especially with his binoculars, but... there was just _something_ off. Like a kind of filter that kept him from fully processing it.

...Well, that's what he's supposed to avoid by playing this game, apparently. No need to be too worried... he supposed.

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

I'm sorry to say that there may or may not be a mini-hiatus from this point. Either way the reason why this got three chapters in a relatively short span of time is because, as I've kind of stated before, I wrote the rough drafts of all the first three chapters and then edited them one by one. I'll start on the fourth chapter today and see how much of it I feel like getting through. In the meantime, if you're into _Gravity Falls_ (if you're not I highly recommend it. Sorry to get a bit negative but I think it's way better than what _Homestuck_ became quality-wise) I'm doing a similar but shorter fic called _run:gifocalypse_ , and I may get the first two chapters published before the end of the year. (I even finished the rough draft of the first chapter on this very day!) So if you like the whole "color, strange elemental" theme this has... well, at the risk of turning into a bit of a "rehasher" I do plan to have a number of (but not _all!_ ) of my future stories to incorporate this in some way. Another reason for the hiatus is that I'd still like to meet publishing certain things before the year ends. And while I managed to get quite a _lot_ done in 2015 by my standards (finishing _The Eds' EDventure_ , _Gumball Vs Satan_ , the long monster that is _Housestuck Hurrcain Crconikals_ , **and** remaking _Zombie Attack_ , as well as getting out a chapter of _Total Zeksmit Plains_ just so that the whole story won't be on hiatus for the entirety of 2015) I still have, at the bare minimum, two things I want to do: Initially publish a _SBIG_ installment (which will be a two-fer: _Act 5 Vs Act 6_ and _Homestuck Thanksgiving Special_ , which plan to be out on Christmas) as I had each year since 2009; and do a crack-crossover work (the first two chapters of _Simpsons Meet Brandy and Mr. Whiskers_ are planned to be out on one day) as I had done last year and the year before. I'd also like to try to start _run:gifocalypse_ before the end of the year. Until then, the other things I've been meaning to work on a little each day right now - chapter 10 of _Total Zeksmit Plains_ , the beginning of _Escape From Fanservice Island_ , and chapter 4 of this very story - won't be held with high priority. And yes, I'll get to my other works eventually. As I've said before, this year I finished off most of the intentionally poorly written ones.

Speaking of _run:gifocalypse_ , the whole twelve-color system can be traced to (well, honestly the original trolls themselves are one inspiration, but) this older story I wrote on fictionpress. It's called _360 Degree Duck_ but I've basically called it a "canned pilot" and discontinued it (most of these characters may be making a return in another incarnation, probably really soon, and I'm thinking of starting up a quickie Tumblr page just for getting the biographies of all of them - including all the minor members). This is the annaversary of its publishing - namely because the date is 12/12 and 12 is supposed to be an important number of the 360-related stuff, so I thought it would be nice if I updated this on this day. I originally thought about doing something directly related to the 360 for each 12/12 but this date came up sooner than I thought and I am _still_ trying to think up ideas for what I want to do with the pseudo-series so this will have to do. By coincidence, since the 11/11 thing was a complete coincidence, this also means that this is the second time I have a chapter publish date for this where the month and day are the same number. If you're lucky, maybe you can count on an update on New Year's Day?

(Also, I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that there are some shared color-themes between this, the _360_ thing, and the upcoming _run:gifocalypse_ at this point, especially since as it stands it's honestly not really that important to the plot and just serves as little references more than anything.)

Oh yeah, I went back to the first chapter and actually talked about Rust's manga-writing. Sorry to say that when I was editing this I put the note to head back to that chapter within the rough of this one, so while I was editing the first chapter I didn't pick up on the note. I wrote those notes when I originally planned to publish all of the first three chapters at the same time. I also added two more sentences to the end of the first paragraph of the second chapter's note.


	4. A Scratch and a Rip

**Bl:oodswap: Guess Who's Getting a Spinoff?**

 **Chapter 4: A Scratch and a Rip**

 **Beginning AN:**

Remember when I said that not much might happen this chapter? Well... while writing this I _kind of_ changed my mind.

* * *

Today was the day.

This was when Roxy Lalonde's hacking skills will pay off. Quickly getting her digital hands on Sburb Alpha and escaping the apocalypse.

The rain surrounding her New York forest house was bad enough as-is already, but Jake's status updates on a very strange golden character above his home made her stomach start to drop. Right now, Roxy was obsessively watching over the weather for any signs of anything other than the usual downpour. Each lightning crack led to a stopped heart. Each sound of thunder made her feel like taking off into a run. Mostly to her room.

Her room. The one place she felt absolutely safe.

Come on. Of all the times for Lime to make her re-appearance in two years, _this should have been it._ That demonic subconcious... monster thing wasn't in her head in any way other than Roxy obsessing over... her.

With no signs of the actual apocalypse, she decided to get to the field that actually showed some progression: Getting Sburb Alpha. Roxy raced back to her room, the one location where she felt safe.

* * *

Yep. Roxy's room. With the edges of the wall, and the walls themselves in an X pattern, are marked with a black substance. A tip from a certain TC informed her that whatever this stuff was, it was the key from preventing psychic troll attacks on the mind. So far, this worked - she could testify years ago each time she slept in the room versus whenever she slept out to test it. This also left the idea that the chartreuse demon was just toying with her and that this wasn't actually working.

If only she had Pesterchum back when she was 9... not having that year of haunting would have made all the difference.

The black not-paint wasn't the only thing of note in her room. In fact, the first thing most people would note is the sea of papers coated the floor, which also made most of the markings on the room's base harder to see. A map of pins connected various symbols and sightings, marking almost everything that could not be explained by simple nature. And, adorned on the far wall, right above her bed, was a loose sketch of a triangle, with the wall's X crossing right in the middle of it.

Roxy picked up a paper to get a look at the symbols on it. This was one of the first signs of Lime's mental attacks that ended up in her house. A wheel, before she knew what Jane and Dirk even looked like. The smiling cat with X'd out eyes was obviously Roxy herself. Triangle with the eye in it, Jake. As it turned out, the horned beast represented Jane and the hat represented Dirk. But what about the cat head with the glaring eyes? The atom? The slime ghost? And the lower half of a record? This alternated between symbols she was familiar with and symbols she wasn't. Her hands trembled at the thought of this. She needed more liquor, to think calmly.

The Lalonde jumped once her computer went off. Oh boy. It was _her_ again. Sigh. Bright pink and bright red never really mix together well on Pesterchum's white backgrounds - she was thinking of changing her color.

\- corrosiveGamma [cg] began trolling eternallyBarricaded [EB] -  
cg: hey  
cg: are you in  
EB: almost jeez i have to get this terminal set up and i have no idea who im gonna serve  
cg: wait hold on  
\- gologothasTerror [GT] joined the conversation! -  
GT: Hi roxy!  
GT: I think i got your file early?  
GT: Jane said shed agree to play the game with me since it will help her get away from something terrible.  
GT: I tried asking her since that was what fuchsia would say i should do but she doesnt want to tell me because its 'too weird.'  
GT: She thinks i wont believe her! Hasnt she heard of my tall tales on the island?  
GT: Well roxy youre the conspiracy theorist why dont you ask her?  
GT: Jane sounds open enough to think your pricked ears can absorb her information.  
EB: cg how did you do that?  
EB: and doesnt this make a memo redundant?  
cg: ill let memos time travel and shit but this is like a memo without time shit in it  
cg: sorry if im short but i need to sort of get into a game sort of now and youre welcome for updating pesterchum for you  
EB: okay of all the mysteries im into yours in on the top now  
EB: except i DONT want to put a stop to it like i do with limes seeing eyes  
cg: yeah lime sucks  
cg: anyway listen it might not look like it but something bad will happen today  
cg: get in the game  
cg: now  
\- corrosiveGamma [cg] left the conversation! -  
EB: soooooo  
EB: now what jakey?  
GT: Well first i do believe we need jane to sign up before i can begin my part.  
GT: Oh wait!  
GT: Her games finished loading!

* * *

As spotted by him earlier, far above and miles away from Jake's house, was none other than the identity-shielding mass of wind, despair, and primal terror currently known as Hemrit.

His feet shuffled further upwards without moving, he floated as the world stood still beneath him, he entered the reaches of space just past the moon and stared at a blank spot of vacuum with unidentifiable eyes.

Today was the day.

Bringing a blood-soaked arm up, Hemrit prepared but one move: Scratching the nothingness in front of him.

It left but a small anomaly in the universe. A tiny rip, only slightly tearing itself a bit taller or wider. Double-sided, as each side led to the opposite side of what was past its dimensional warping. From this distance and with this little visibility, it was undetectable by humanity right now.

Hemrit teleported away.

* * *

 **(Years in the Future, but Not Many...)**

Even through the Earth's atmosphere, the rip was visible as a black gateway to the unknown. The only thing helping to obscure that was the smoke that rose through the atmosphere, poisoning the skies with an ash gray. Roars were heard about, followed by shakes through the very ground itself. The rip, still growing ever so-slowly, was but an accurate metaphor for life on the distant Earth: Falling apart by the minute.

In other words, today was a perfectly ordinary day for Dirk.

He tightened up his gas mask as he continued his look-out for anything of interest from the roof of his trashed apartment building. Well, he wasn't doing the looking out. He was reporting results.

Squarewave narrowly dodged a tentacle flipping up from below once he landed on the rooftop, rushing back into the door. That was the routine at this point; if he didn't have anything to say, he wouldn't say it. He needed any photos snapped to be processed and printed as soon as possible.

Then Sawtooth floated by, and after blasting missiles at the horror resting at the foot of the building, he gave Dirk a thumb's up.

One of Dirk's few emotional responses from that wasn't visible, thanks to his gas mask. But he ran in himself, getting to his computer and checking the display:

Jane, standing on her balcony, entry item now produced and displayed on-screen. The kernerlsprite was still empty - a flashing electric blue ball that obviously wasn't making sense to her. At least the tree was up. The... empty tree, with no real indication on what to do.

TT: Uh.  
GG: I'm just as confuddled as you are!  
GG: I tried... punching the tree but nothing happened.  
TT: Maybe you have to protoype the kernelsprite?  
GG: I'm a bit occupied for that.  
GG: There's the factor of me not having an idea in the slightest on where that bugger went.  
\- corrosiveGamma [cg] joined the conversation! -  
cg: wait  
cg: dont prototype it  
cg: i have a few better ideas  
TT: Oh, hey Candy.  
cg: dirk no  
cg: just focus on the game  
cg: ask questions later  
cg: you have an apocalypse to avoid  
\- catGirl [CG] joined the conversation! -  
CG: :5 HA HA, AVOIDING THE APOCALYPSE!  
CG: :5 SIS YOU ARE A RIOT! THATS THE FUNNIESSSSST THING IVE HEARD ALL SWEEP!  
CG: :5 HAHAHAHAHA- ((i knew you were gonna block me thats why this ends on a cutoff dash))  
\- corrosiveGamma [cg] blocked catGirl [CG] from this chat -  
cg: sorry  
GG: Dirk, couldn't you drag something to the sprite at the last second?  
TT: How did you get this far without knowing I'm not your server player?  
GG: What?  
TT: I thought it was obvious from the way he was dropping things down.  
TT: Jake's the one getting you in.

* * *

 **(Moments Later by Moments Later...)**

Roxy dashed through the transportalizer just as Jake's house began flashing, sending him to the Medium to join Jane. He did gasp at the tree containing a hanging Nepeta - but Limebot patted him on the back, telling him not to worry about it.

A moment after, Roxy's house likewise disappeared from the rain-coated location that was the home's New York forest.

Still silence passed through the two woods. Not knowing the oncoming apocalypse, destined to happen in only a few hundred years. Not spotting the portal to madness that lied above both of them.

* * *

 **(Years in the Future)**

Jake's island now had an uncountably high number of gigantic feet storming the dried, dead remains of the land. Roxy's former living locations, likewise left a wasteland thanks to the bizarre parts formed around them. The house by Washington...

Well, you should be able to figure out by now that this story is going in the direction of revealing that _Jane_ is Dirk's future-buddy here, and not Roxy.

She had just gotten up to the day that, from Pesterchum synchronizing (thanks Candy), was linked up to the start of that rip in space. Not that humanity themselves knew of it - wherever they may be.

As is the norm for a post-apocalyptic setting, Jane had to prepare for the toxic atmosphere that swept the empty streets around her home.

The monsters were oddly quiet today. Only a few ambiant roars and brief outlined shadows in the distance (which, thanks to the smoke seriously hindering all distant vision, wasn't saying much). Jane's entire block was all-but monster free. Maybe, just maybe... she could step out the forcefield?

Even thinking of this would require getting the necessary weapons first, obviously. Stepping outside of the forcefield wasn't something one usually does unless one were a robot, and she has less robots than Dirk does. Zero compared to two, to be exact.

...Not for long. Dirk had something planned for her as a birthday present, and he had implied that it was robotic in nature. Still, Jane's track record for leaving her forcefield was higher than Dirk's and would likely remain, since she could still have an easier time leaving her house's boundries while Dirk had to climb through his whole building with a busted elevator and survivors trying to break in.

Sure enough, she was once again pestered by the mysterious 'Candy.' Candy being what she called herself, for whatever reason:

\- corrosiveGamma [cg] began pestering gutsyGumshoe [GG] -  
cg: hey  
cg: if youre going out  
cg: could you get something for me before you and dirk enter the game?  
GG: And what might that be?  
cg: its only a few blocks down  
cg: its  
cg: how do i put this  
cg: theres this orb  
cg: it looks black right now but i kind of want it  
cg: at least my sister wants it  
cg: but you have to hurry  
cg: because im sure shes sending limebot to it right now  
GG: Wait, isn't Limebot in the past?  
GG: Sounds like she has centuries of a head start over me, to be honest.  
cg: i fast-forewarded until after jake and limebot entered the game  
cg: so the timelines just not gonna allow her to control it anymore since she didnt in the past  
cg: but  
cg: after dirk enters and i cant see or pester you  
cg: she gets this upper hand  
cg: and its not pretty

Once again, ol' Candy was being cryptic as ever.

Walking around the desolate wastelands of a post-apocalyptic Washington can get a bit stale over time, which means that now is the perfect oppertunity to go back to the sorta-present. After Jane's entry. Or, maybe, Jane's entry as witnessed by someone else?

* * *

It should come off as no surprise since the word "Candy" was tossed that lower-case cg was, in fact, a mutant blood. Bright red to be specific.

Her name was Candy Nepeta Leijon, and the grounds here were anything but friendly.

The only signs of life on _her_ wasteland, blue instead of brown, were the occasional mushrooms that dotted up from the ground. She ignored them - not just because of taking risks, but because her fridge had a bottomless supply of foods as it was.

That statement was actually literal, as she could attest to when she opened it. Every time something was taken off of a shelf, another food (be it the same thing or, more commonly, something else - easily a lifetime's worth of variety overall, with her finding at least one completely new addition every day) would shine into existance to take its place.

Pesterchum and an endless food supply, with nothing else, of course ends up becoming boring, which is why Candy sets foot so often in the first place. It's not like she has a Sgrub or even Sburb session to get to in any form. Or that she even shares a body with a more powerful, more quirky character, because body sharing is still not a troll thing. Even by the warped standards of being a One. Er... a _sort of_ One. Maybe.

She already verified that she wasn't a player - a complete lack of a dream self, only normal dreams, there were obviously no signs of meteors or her even having access to the thing... she'd long learn to accept that she could only watch, and not play.

But that was helped by her gleefully washing away the entire game of Sgurb. Seriously, who the hell would find that enjoyable?

Oh hey, something popped up. A massive egg-looking thing just spawned from the air and plopped down-

Shit, she's an exile, isn't she? And might not really 'start' the game by somehow hijacking someone else's session?

Sighing at her apparent job's reveal, Candy Nepeta looked back at her screen and decided to, for once, switch gears. To pre-scratch. After all, this _was_ the version of the planet she's on the aftermath of.

This should be pretty fun-

GG: oh god theres more of you?  
GG: go to hell  
cg:  
\- corrosiveGamma [cg] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] -

Yeah, that went just as expected.

* * *

"Are you okay?" John asked, overlapping two cards to read another alchemy combination.

Olive already knew what was going to happen next, but questioned him anyway. "Yeah, why did you ask?"

"You didn't talk to me for the entire third gate quest. Is this about you pretending to be a guy with gray text that insults everybody? I already said that was fine because you had this long and complicated reason about cults being after you. How big was the cult, anyway?"

"Eh... not big enough. Sorry."

"But it's part of your freaky alien world. And so is Lime. I think what you did made sense. You just couldn't take the pressure of Alternia and-"

"That was why I played as Karkat in front of my other swaps. And the other trolls. That doesn't excuse when I kept the act up while I was trolling you."

"Well, if you used the same handle, we might notice someone who wasn't shouting at us or giving us threats, and tell your friends about it-"

"They're not really my friends. Except Lime... no, nevermind."

"-And your secret would be out!"

Olive perked up a tiny bit, raising her head. "Okay. So..." She said, looking for a way to change the subject, "What are you building?"

"Every computer I made so far had an issue. My home computer can't be carried around. The Cosbytop can't be used on the go. And my computer-glasses make it impossible to see what's ahead of me. I was going to use Jade's computers to try to make a see-through screen, so I can talk to you guys while I fly around and we do our quests to make a new universe and the other important plot stuff."

"Oh, I think I know a code. Let me help you with that."

She was interrupted with her tail-computer buzzing. Needing to sigh first, she swung her hips around to bring it closer to her. And started tapping against the end of the blue device. A slightly see-through screen popped up, prompting John to say "Kind of like that!"

Olive Nepeta felt like punching the screen as soon as she saw the exact shade of red that made up the text.

\- corrosiveGamma [cg] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] -  
cg: olive  
cg: this your handle?  
CG: :33 not really but im glad you still k33p in touch with me :/  
cg: nice to see you too  
cg: listen  
cg: i checked ahead in b2 and everything goes black  
cg: i cant contact anyone there either  
cg: you can see its out of desperation but i just wanted to talk to somebody  
cg: that isnt  
cg: you know  
\- catGirl [CG2] joined the conversation! -  
CG2: :5 that i5nt... MEEEEE?  
cg: oh no  
CG2: :5 NI5E TO 5EE THAT THE HOLY CG TRINITY I5 UNITED!  
CG2: :5 CANDY THANK5 TO YOU U5ING OLIVES OLD TROLL TAG WEVE EVEN GOT HER MATCHING OUR INITIAL5!  
CG2: :5 I KNEW IF I HAD ENOUGH PATIEN5E THI5 WILL HAPPEN EVENTUALLY!  
CG2: :5 AND CANDY YOUR "MEMO WITHOUT THE TIME 5HIT" PLAN I5 A BRILLIANT WAY TO GET THAT DONE!  
cg: big deal  
CG: :33 yeah were all talking together so what?  
CG2: :5 nothing. im ju5t excited to 5peak with my be5t 5i55e5 right now  
CG2: :5 i wa5 ju5t 5houting beclaw5 thi5 i5 a moment WORTHY of my ham!  
CG2: :5 olive, by ham for ON5E i dont mean "a55"  
CG: :|| thank god  
CG: :33 so candy what do you want to do?  
cg: start bugging you guys  
cg: just give me a little scoop on what youre all doing in b1  
cg: like i said  
CG2: :5 BEFORE I CAME IN!  
CG: :33 okay

And thus, Olive Nepeta began typing out a small recap of her team's trials before. Once John saw what looked like a glipse of a summary, he sighed, sitting back to let her finish this conversation.

At least this meant more time to try to figure out how to build the perfect portable compu- oh god dammit.

While Nepeta was in the middle of typing, John looked at his current glasses-computer to find that he was messaged by someone else. Another name he was only familiar with by gatching a glimpse on Olive's screen.

\- corrosiveGamma [cg] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] -  
cg: hey  
cg: got bored  
cg: hi  
EB: hi?  
EB: you have the same shade of red as olive's screen. are you the person she was talking to?  
\- arsenicCatnip [AC] joined the conversation! -  
AC: :33 yes  
cg: woah who are you  
EB: that's olive!  
cg: you changed your handle  
AC: :33 yes  
\- catGirl [CG] joined the conversation! -  
CG: :5 DONT LEAVE ME OUT! X5  
yo can i join too?  
thiZ lookZ like a Zweet converZation to get in on!  
AC: :33 candy its rude to just leave while i was telling you important information  
CG: :5 yes candy li5ten to her!  
EB: candy?  
AC: :33 like candy red  
AC: :33 long story but we REALLY RECENTLY found out that theres ANOTHER one of us with a mutant blood color  
CG: :5 DELI5IOU5 candy red blood to be exact! :O~  
CG: :5 kidding even i have my 5tandard5  
cg: barely  
AC: :33 agr33d  
EB: and who's the white text guy?  
glad youre highlighting john.  
AC: :33 oh that guys back?  
CG: :5 just forget him  
CG: :5 li5ten to U5!  
CG: :5 our new three-way conver5ation5 are MUCH MORE FUN to li5ten to!  
CG: :5 maybe theyre more fun if YOU PARTI5IPATE in them? wanna try it out? come on try it out!  
im having fun already!  
CG: :5 not you go fuck your5elf  
promiZe i wont bug you for long  
Zeven converZationZ left, not counting thiZ!  
weren't you keeping count?  
CG: :5 ...  
EB: do you know who this guy is?  
AC: :33 not really  
AC: :33 none of us do  
CG: :5 I CAN COME CLO5E TO FIGURING THI5 WEIRDO OUT  
CG: :5 I HAVE COME CLO5E  
CG: :5 HE5 FROM OUR UNIVER5E AND TIMELINE  
CG: :5 THAT I5 ALL I KNOW  
well i juZt wanted to Zay that thingZ might get a lot more intereZting from here on out  
alZo, when are you juZt gonna like Zcratch that Zucker of a ZeZZion anyway?  
CG: :5 *CG 5IGH5 /VEHEMENTLY/*  
CG: :5 youre giving away the grand finale!  
CG: :5 well the grand finale of act one anyway  
CG: :5 i doubt even YOU would know about act... let5 5ay three  
CG: :5 because you know about my act 2 right?  
aw man totally!  
it Zounds Zo RAD!  
CG: :5 i dont like the word 'rad'  
EB: okay!  
EB: before the conversation goes on, i want you to introduce yourselves to me!  
EB: i'm being really serious about this!  
EB: not you olive, you're fine.  
CG: :5 im lime nepeta  
CG: :5 you mean to 5ay youre 5till not familiar with me?  
CG: :5 im the kind of troll that will be haunting your nightmare5!  
cg: im candy  
cg: i think i live in the ruins of your planet  
juZt call me Zmit-Zee yo.  
uh, without my quirk that would be "Smit-zee." the firZt "Z" iZ an "S" and but the Zecond really iZ a "Z."  
AC: :33 wow  
AC: :33 for sw33ps none of the other Ones knew your name  
AC: :33 and you just tell john like that?  
none of them ever aZked.  
i'd Zay including you but i never really trolled you.  
i trolled lime a lot though.  
actually lime DID aZk and i told HER.  
we juZt kept everything between cool friendZ like uZ.  
CG: :5 yeah  
cg: okay lets just get to the point  
cg: john your sessions fucked anyway  
cg: the Ones knew this from the beginning and theres a way to fix it called a scratch  
cg: thats what the Ones have been preparing you for not just beating the boss the boss is already beaten and the reckoning will start like way too early  
cg: from what i see it will start in about thirty minutes from your time  
you're no fun candy.  
cg: of course that sounds exactly like what someone who likes lime would say  
cg: now heres the rough details

* * *

"John." Dave said before John could ask why Purple appeared to be holding around his neck and clinging to his back, sleeping, even though she was taller than he was.

"What?"

"Why did you come to my Land unannounced? It's not a big plan-breaker or anything, I just wanted to know."

"Candy said that this huge disc thing I'm standing on is really some kind of time resetter?"

"Who's Candy? It's like everytime I find out about one pen pal of yours you suddenly have another one hiding around the corner."

"Another Nepeta with a 'mutant' blood color that looks more like our blood color but it's apparently weird by their standards because their shade of red isn't anywhere near that light."

Dave turned around to get another look at the Nepeta still trying to hang around his neck (and getting dragged as a result). Conveniently, this was also when she was starting to wake up. Dave sighed.

"You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"

"I didn't know anything about a... 'Candy' person! Honest! That's like, one of the zillions of secrets shared between Olive and Lime. That's their 'green stuff' as we're now saying. No offense to Jade. Jade the Nepeta, not Jade t... the... the Salty..."

She drifted off back to sleep after saying this.

"Wasn't Rust planned to team up with your questing?" Asked John.

"Uh, not exactly. She did come over to my roof but then she was just like 'Oops I accidentally spoiled something I shouldn't have to you' and now I'm freaked out and she's freaked out and she left and I'm stuck with this one." He finished his run-on sentence by pointing at the offending Nepeta in question.

"Oh. What did she spoil?"

"It's... shit. It's best if you don't know."

"Oh my god Rust knows when I'm going to die, is that it?"

"Fuck."

"Don't worry Dave! I promise I won't try to look up my own time of death! I didn't plan on that anyway..."

"It's uh, it's not just that. It's also the cause of-"

"Did she show you a picture from the future of me getting killed by someone I know?"

"Damn."

"And it happens really soon, right? Because everybody dies eventually."

"John, I thought you didn't want to know about this."

"I thought about making just once guess! ...It's pretty sad that my one guess keeps turning out right."

"Okay then, why not waste your one guess on something stupid?"

John shrugged. "That's a better idea than anything I could think of. So... am I gonna get killed by... uh... Olive?"

Dave sighed, almost a chuckle. "Wow did you get everything absolutely correct! Now we can drop this completely."

* * *

This was probably Jane's record for the distance she ventured out solo. Out in the remains and ruins of an old prank factory - one that was somehow untouched by her meteor. Odd since John's wasn't.

Yeah, Candy gave most of this stuff away. She couldn't actually see the meteor arrivals of the post-Scratch human session, they were voided out, but she knew enough about the Scratch and the pre-Scratch arrivals to put two and two together. Then directed that information to Jane herself.

So, regarding the factory itself. Surprise, surprise, it was abandoned. Just like most life on the planet after the Rip's growing. Roars were getting closer. Jane had to act fast.

There was, as Candy told her, some kind of orb standing on the counter. Almost as if someone found it in the store, wanted to check with the register to see the price, and then everyone was forced to evacuate due to the massive monsters dropping in.

Wow, that sure was good for an improvised sad tale quickie.

Anyway, with a grip of the strange sphere, she was off and heading back, and as seen earlier in this chapter, she will in fact make it there in time to get into the game.

Once she left, a gray hand punched its way out of the ground. The owner began climbing their way back up, unaware that another sapient person was just in the store not too long ago.

* * *

 **(Moments Later...)**

Jane sighed upon her bizarre tree-puzzle turning out to not need much effort, now choosing to search around for the sphere that Candy previously asked her to retrieve. It... she lost it.

So, Land of Crypts and Helium. Well, amazingly enough is was not that much better than the post-apocalyptic world she resided in. If anything, it was worse. No sign of anyone in sight.

\- gutsyGumshoe [GG] began pestering corrosiveGamma [cg] -  
GG: I have collected the brilliant spherical goodness as requested!  
GG: I can't find it right now, but I assure you it resides in my living domain!  
GG: Now what?  
cg: uh  
cg: youre gonna want to wait  
cg: itll take a while before i get there  
GG: You're planning to meet us in person?  
cg: yeah  
cg: but like through b1 and not your b2 session  
cg: no offense  
cg: anyway you keep that safe and find a place lime will NEVER get to  
cg: its important  
GG: What about my sylladex?  
cg: yeah of everyone i trust to not die youre on the top of my list  
cg: youre pretty cool  
cg: i guess that could work as a safe spot  
cg: afterall lime never tries to murder any friend of a friend  
cg: or  
cg: friend of a swap  
cg: she will try to get into your head when she finds out  
cg: and she will  
cg: dont end up like roxy did  
GG: ...I already prepared for such a case.  
cg: good  
cg: anyway see ya  
\- corrosiveGamma [cg] ceased trolling gutsyGumshoe [GG] -

Oh hey. At some point Jake left her a notification that he made it into the session too. Too short of a post to really put in a Pesterlog.

He too failed to prototype anything before entry, but apparently, Candy let him in on that too.

With no apparent signs of the house being built up and no way to get to grist, Jane started exploring on her own.

* * *

Land of Mounds and Xenon! ...What a rather bland-looking place for an adventure. Certainly with less life and... glamour than the other lands Candy had foretold him about.

Well... time to hunt for grist. He guessed. Odd that there weren't any Underlings about. He figured Lime was exaggerating when she said that they tend to swarm a player's house instantly, but it was still weird to have no signs of any enemies around at all.

\- gutsyGumshoe [GG] began pestering gologothasTerror [GT] -  
GG: Oh, skeletons!  
GT: Skeletons?  
GT: Is that per chance a new form of slang im unaware of?  
GG: No, it just dawned on me. Skeletal Underlings!  
GG: /These/ are the pesky lil fellers we have to be on the lookout for!  
GT: Hrm.  
GT: Candy any news on that?  
\- corrosiveGamma [cg] joined the conversation! -  
cg: um  
cg: honestly  
cg: im not sure  
cg: it might have something to do with your 'void session' but ill have to  
cg: just check  
cg: hang on  
cg: let me load up sburbpedia  
GT: Theres a sburbpedia?  
cg: oh yeah i should have mentioned that  
cg: its nothing official though  
cg: more like a fan-made wiki  
cg: anyway i should focus on helping dirk get roxy in the game  
cg: that might be tricky  
cg: knowing roxy  
cg: also jane when are you gonna tell jake that you live sweeps in the future after the apocalypse  
\- corrosiveGamma [cg] left the conversation -  
GT: What?  
GG: Um... well... that...  
GG: DAMN YOU CANDY NEPETA LEIJON!

* * *

Somehow, Dirk already knew.

He knew that Jane and him were gonna have to come clean about this 'we lived after a bunch of weird monster things wrecked our planet' secret they've kept for so long.

Well, dealing with _Roxy's_ reaction would be the _real_ ugly part.

Speaking of Roxy, she just barely entered her land too, getting a sigh from Dirk as he looked out at the toxic wasteland around him.

Welp, time to deal with yet another new face as he was pestered.

\- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] -  
TG: hey  
TG: youre like my biological dad  
TG: remember this  
TG: kay bye  
\- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] -

Well, that was weird.

Still, Dirk chose to remember that. Memory was one of his strong points, after all, and it was worth entertaining himself to try to keep up with that challenge.

* * *

Jade was still working out the finer details of the Nepeta whose nickname was the same as her own first. Hrm...

"I got it!" Jade Nepeta cheered, "Got it got it got it! We could go even faster if we do this! Like, faster than combining sessions with jetpacks!"

"Do what?"

"Okay... well, I think we need to do something called a Scratch anyway? But... um, Lime says she already has enough to build this kind of robot thing that acts as a second body to her. She could even use my hive's technology for it too!

"Wait. H-hang on."

She activated her scarf-computer, returning her look back to Harley with a frown.

"Um, nevermind. She said that she only wants to use this to monitor the world after the Scratch. Like talking to your kind of ectobiological relative or something."

"I have an ectobiological relative?"

"Two, in fact! Er... right. I think it's two. In the Scratch, both of them play the game and... well, I think one of them is your pen pal or something?"

"That sounds... kind of cool, actually!"

"It does!"

"Do you have a Scratch thing too?"

"Sss... everytime I ask Lime about it, she just laughs."

"So she knows?"

"Well, it's Lime. So yes."

"Hm..."

'Salty' instantly went on her computer-classes, opening up Pesterchum and scrolling over to the Trollslum. Lime and Fuchsia's handles were the only two that were still blocked at the moment. A meaningless move, but one that felt oddly satisfying. She selected catGirl and prepared for frustration.

\- gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering catGirl [CG] -  
GG: tell me everything about the scratch  
CG: :5 jeez, youre impatient  
CG: :5 5o which one blabbed me out to you?  
CG: :5 lets 5ee here lemme gue55...  
CG: :5 eenie menie miney-  
CG: :5 IT WA5 OLIVE WA5 IT?  
GG: no it was jade  
GG: um  
GG: your jade  
CG: :5 no need to elaborate! were already calling you 5alty! all twelve of u5!  
CG: :5 5ome of them might 5ay theyre not, but tru5t me, they do it behind your back!  
CG: :5 ha!  
GG: youre getting off topic  
CG: :5 okay 5ince you dont like 5urpri5e5 ill 5pill every bean in the garden  
CG: :5 the 5cratch can be activated by thi5 thing called the beat me5a  
GG: what about the scratch in your session?  
CG: :5 oh that5 fun!  
CG: :5 before u5 wa5 beforu5! that5 the name of our planet!  
CG: :5 and in that were our twelve kidified ance5tor5! all named meulin!  
CG: :5 and before THAT...  
CG: :5 hang on, what wa5 that thing candy u5e5? i wanna tell everybody thi5 at once, in a change-of-heart way  
CG: :5 i really hate how candy get5 her troll on what with all that technical bull5hit but it5 worth it  
\- gardenGnostic [GG] was forcibly locked into the conversation! -  
\- ectoBiologist [EB] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- tentacleTherapist [TT] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- turntechGodhead [TG] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- gutsyGumshoe [GG2] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- gologothasTerror [GT] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- eternallyBarricaded [EB2] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- eternallyBarricaded [EB2] used a defensive ritual to prevent herself from being dragged in the chat! -  
\- timaeusTestified [TT2] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- adorablenessTerminal was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- twinAwesomepaws [TA] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- corrosiveGamma [cg] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- corrosiveGamma [cg] fought her way out of the force and declined getting involved! -  
\- arsenicCatnip [AC] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- gargantuanAether [GA] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- gnawingCatwoodsmonster [GC] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- adorabloodthirstyGrip [AG] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- calicosTail [CT] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- tabbyCute [TC] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- chromophilicAquarium [CA] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- catfishCuller [CC] was forced to join the conversation! -  
GG: woah  
GG: what did you do?  
TG: i know as much as you do  
TG: at one point i was grinding  
TG: then like  
TG: my fucking computer just sprung a window and pulled me in pesterchum  
EB: me too!  
EB: i'm trying to look away but i can't!  
TT: Nobody was in the middle of a battle, were they?  
CG: :5 relax, ill teleport over to any underlings and light them on fire  
CG: :5 youre 5afe with me  
CG: :5 ANYWAY li5ten up it5 5tory time!  
CG: :5 get thi5!  
CG: :5 OUR 5e55ion i5 the re5ult of THREE 5cratche5!  
CG: :5 im 5ure you have 5OT5 of que5tion5, 5o ill an5wer them on a fir5t come fir5t 5erve ba5i5  
TC: B( c4n i get b4ck to my c4tn4p?  
TC: B4 4lso hey d4ve  
CG: :5 NO!  
CG: :5 THI5 I5 ALL VERY IMPORTANT, AND wait roxy and candy opted out  
CG: :5 HA HA, JOKE5 ON THEM!  
CG: :5 theyre probably the one5 that need to hear about thi5 the mo5t!  
CG: :5 5o let5 begin with the triple-5cratche5!

* * *

CG: :5 5o fir5t there were the fir5t generation beforu5 troll5

Lime sent everybody accompanying images of her presentation. In this case, it started out with sillouettes of twelve additional trolls. None of them were Nepetas.

CG: :5 only two of thi5 group are worth caring about right now  
CG: :5 but at lea5t it5 better than the next 5e55ion with only ONE per5on worth caring about!  
CG: :5 well it might al5o have two if you count the real karkat  
EB: olive, did you know anything about this?  
AC: :33 ...BARELY  
AC: :33 lime stop hiding secrets from me!  
CG: :5 would you really want me to do that to you though?  
CG: :5 if i tell everybody EVERYTHING AT ONCE there5 NO WAY your mind5 would be able to comprehend it all!  
AC: :33 *AC SIGHS /VEHEMENTLY/*  
AC: :33 yeah john she can be a patience tester like that  
EB: i already knew that.  
EB: since our first conversation.  
CG: :5 LIKE I WA5 5AYING...  
CG: :5 the two you need to care about are named kurloz makara and meulin leijon

Next, a picture of one troll in particular ripping up a giant crystal music box.

CG: :5 mo5t of them were bad at the game 5o they went to 5cratch  
CG: :5 kinda like all of you puppet5!  
TG: hey where did you get these high quality file photos from  
TG: and if theyre so hd then why cant we see any of the trolls on them  
CG: :5 i got them from NONE OF YOUR BU5INE55! :P  
CG: :5 and you cant 5ee the ten irrelevant5 becau5e IM BEING A GIANT TEA5E AND 5HUT UP IM ADORABLE! :P  
CG: :5 the next frame 5how5 you all what kurloz and meulin look like  
CG: :5 remember them, youll 5hit brick5 when you 5ee them in a more in per5on-y way than right now

Yep. A troll in an unamusing green shirt with that same black Leo sign on it. Standing next to her was a well-groomed troll with a pair of black Xes over his ears and a full purple-and-black skeleton suit.

CG: :5 so that5 them  
CG: :5 blah blah blah meulin: left kurloz: right  
CG: :5 now before they could pull off the 5cratch 5omething odd happened

A flash. Another troll, similar to the one working on the giant music box, appeared. Along with another, identical music box.

CG: :5 5omehow... well i know how but youll have to wait  
CG: :5 (HINT: IT INVOLVE5 KURLOZ!)  
CG: :5 the ru5t blood of the team wa5 met with a doomed timeline 5elf claiming to try to e5cape the 5cratch and 5end thi5 other old doomed copy of the cardinal movement - the 5cratching thing - over to that new world to 5ee what would happen  
CG: :5 anyway the fuch5ia blood had a plan to keep all the troll5 in exi5tance but dead if they were all blown up before the 5cratch actually hit  
CG: :5 5ince the 5cratch wipe5 a per5on out of exi5tance  
CG: :5 it5 a little 5tupid i know but it5 pretty impurrtant heh heh

Nobody could really decipher what was in the next image. It just showed a ton of bright light, breaking what appeared to be a number of lillypads.

CG: :5 anyway one cardinal movement wa5 5ent acro55 time  
CG: :5 the other wa5 5cratched to 5end thing5 acro55 time  
CG: :5 heh  
CG: :5 odd huh?  
CG: :5 anyway thi5 led to the 5e55ion with the fir5t nepeta  
CG: :5 5he had olive blood too!  
CG: :5 well call thi5 nepeta "nepeta prime"

Yep, there she was. Shared the same sense of fashion as 'this' Olive.

TT: Prime can denote the trend of change, not origin.  
GG: yeah  
GG: like a derivative  
CG: :5 THI5 I5 NOT CALCULU5!  
CG: :5 5HUT UP AND LI5TEN YOU LITTLE NERD5!  
AC: :33 LIME!  
AC: :33 what did we say about voice-raising to humans?  
CG: :5 oh yeah right!  
CG: :5 if im gonna FORCE YOU to li5ten to a long wind of expo5ition, i 5hould at lea5t do it in a polite tone!  
CG: :5 HA, how rude of me!  
TC: B4 did you just s4y "long?"  
TC: B4 uh type  
TC: B4 uh w4it i c4n just look up  
TC: B4 nevermind th4t w4s 4 stupid question  
CG: :5 dont beat your5elf up purple!  
CG: :5 yeah thi5 will take 5ome time, right now ju5t li5ten up or 5omething and ill TRY to get through thi5 a5 fa5t a5 i can  
CG: :5 read up  
CG: :5 dammit purple your confu5ion of 5poken word5 and typed word5 i5 5preading  
CG: :5 like 5ome kind of horrible, HORRIBLE infe5tation  
CG: :5 anyway

Another silouetted troll, this one using some kind of whip to attack the next Cardinal Movement.

CG: :5 they failed too 5ince it turned out the original-karkat5 planet wa5 cut in half before the time player could even enter 5o they were all 5crewed  
CG: :5 then they went on and u5d that ol backup 5cratch after all  
CG: :5 nothing accounted for doing two 5cratche5 in a row  
CG: :5 becau5e of 5ome long 5tuff involving nepeta there and meulin in the other one, 5omething went...  
CG: :5 weird  
CG: :5 the univer5e wa5 5cratched, yet in5tead of theoretically making a "loop" with another 5e55ion involving kurloz and meulin5 gang...  
CG: :5 we got a timeline with twelve meulin5!  
CG: :5 they had their own ru5t bronze gold olive jade teal cobalt indigo purple violet and fuch5ia  
CG: :5 "but lime youre forgetting 5omeone!"  
CG: :5 5illy, no im not!  
CG: :5 they DONT have their own lime!  
CG: :5 in5tead they got a much le55 powerful meulin with mutantly bright blood that ha5 no p5ychic power5 what5oever!  
CG: :5 they 5ay "candy red blood" but im in the minority when i 5ay i hate that term  
CG: :5 5till we all call that "candy" for 5hort anyway  
CG: :5 i mean not WE we 5ince thi5 i5 YOUR fir5t time of knowing all about thi5  
CG: :5 but like  
CG: :5 my "friend5" in the furthe5t ring and i  
AC: :33 your furriends?  
CG: :5 yeah yeah mo5t of the troll5 from the5e "A1" and "A2" 5e55ion5 are dead and over there  
CG: :5 the exception5 are...  
CG: :5 meulin prime and nepeta prime  
CG: :5 i dont know why  
CG: :5 it might involve why "A3" and "A4" all have leijon-clone5 a5 their player5  
CG: :5 welp that5 all folk5!  
CG: :5 time to unlock all of you and 5ince youre already gathered...  
CG: :5 let5 chat!  
\- catGirl [CG] released the lock! -  
\- catGirl [CG] left the conversation -  
TG: well  
TG: any questions  
TG: because i sure as fuck have a million  
CC: :I  
CC: :I hey  
CC: :I sInce EVERYBODY Is convenIently here...  
CC: :I I have somethIng to propose  
CC: :I does anybody want to  
CC: :I rebel agaInst that asshole?  
TC: B4 which one?  
CC: :I lIme you fuckIng IdIot  
CC: :I our sessIon was a mIllIon tImes more tollerable before we fIrst met her  
CC: :I I now kInd of regret huntIng down her planet  
CC: :I and I NEVER regret huntIng ANYTHING down!  
CA: :9 ...  
CA: :9 uh oh i dont have a choice do i?  
TA: :22 ...  
TA: :22 no we 2HOULD have a choice!  
TA: :22 fuch2ia plea2e dont do whatever i think you want to do  
AT: :1 my words exactly  
AT: :1 except w1thout "please"  
AT: :1 fuchs1a ser1ously stop whatever 1t 1s before you start  
CA: :9 let me try to handle this  
CA: :9 sea-dweller to sea-dweller  
GG: hey i hate fuchsia too can i join in?  
GA: :7= allow me 7o be 7he one 7o formally invi7e you 7o our club!  
GA: :7= wai7, i 7hink...  
AT: :1 yeah were mak1ng th1s a club  
AT: :1 hey meet all of us 1n loeam  
AT: :1 for some reason thats one place l1me would NEVER go so.  
AT: :1 have fun over there  
\- catGirl [CG] joined the conversation! -  
CG: :5 HAHAHAHAHA!  
CG: :5 how 5tupid do you think i am?  
CG: :5 ju5t becau5e im logged out doe5nt mean i cant read thi5!  
CG: :5 thank5 for letting me know that you all hate me! i love thi5 reveal! no i really do!  
CG: :5 5EE YA!  
\- catGirl [CG] left the conversation -  
AT: :1 GAH!  
CC: :I I know rIght?  
GG2: ...Wait a minute.  
GG2: I don't believe we have ever formally met.  
\- catGirl [CG] joined the conversation! -  
CG: :5 nah id rather not have you get chummy with your ectorelative5 here  
CG: :5 that 5hit i5 boring im gonna let you memorize the handle5 and meet up in private  
CG: :5 bye!  
\- catGirl [CG] forcibly ended the chat! -

* * *

Wow. What an ass.

Fuchsia groaned at how she chose to keep the meeting spot on Olive's Land. All these green trees... all of the signs... the way 'Karkat' kept being so focused on them... it should have been obvious that 'Karkat' was actually Olive. It is, right now, obvious that Lime is going to hunt her down, considering how she called her bluff.

The bitch could teleport anyway there was pretty much zero privacy when it came to her. It's a matter of when she sees what one (or what _One_ , heh heh) is up to and not if.

Bronze reacted in mild surprise once she flew over to Olive's land, raising an eyebrow.

"This was my idea. How did you get here first?"

"I actually know how to work a damn jet pack."

Bronze rolled her eyes. This was around the time Gold peeked in next, thinking back and forth between stepping in or not.

Getting a message from the strange white-texted guy helped tell Gold that, yes, she should jump in.

WHAZZUP!  
TA: :22 hi?  
juZt feeling a lil lonely, that'Z all.  
juZt wanted to talk to you ladieZ before my time iZ up and Zomething bad comeZ out to kill me.  
TA: :22 ..  
TA: :22 what2 the point of thi2 though  
TA: :22 no offen2e but..  
TA: :22 i dont um  
TA: :22 really get it  
can't an omnipotent dudebro juZt waZte one of hiZ remaining Zix converZationZ to chat a little?  
why not make the beZt of thiZ and bring all your friendZ here too!  
like um...  
am i Ztill on bad termZ with ruZt?  
wait i'm omniZcient i Zhould know thiZ  
TA: :22 are you ju2t trying to mezz with me or zomething?  
TA: :22 *me22 *2omething dang it your quirk i2 rubbing off on me  
\- catGirl [CG] joined the conversation! -  
TA: :22 uugghh..  
CG: :5 back off white-text! me55ing with people i5 MY job!  
CG: :5 5ay i couldnt help but notice that we have very 5imilar quirk5 and we bookeneded the entry chain but thi5 i5 one of the few time5 i talked to you  
we alZo have Zimilar quirkZ! We hate the letter "S!"  
CG: :5 i wa5nt talking to you a55 face  
TA: :22 can i at lea5t get back to fuch2ia and bronze's "anti-you" plan?  
TA: :22 gaah! *lea2t  
TA: :||  
CG: :5 heh heh heh heh heh  
CG: :5 anyway if white-text want5 to keep breaking thi5 up then im out  
CG: :5 i wa5 ju5t doing 5ome light tea5ing  
CG: :5 i can tell ive 5tolen too much 5potlight already that5 ju5t a gut feeling  
CG: :5 later!  
\- catGirl [CG] left the conversation! -  
\- calicosTail [CT] joined the conversation! -  
CT: :% finally... shes gone  
CT: :% now white text guy theres something i wanna say  
TA: :22 are you at the meeting yet?  
CT: :% no but im close  
CT: :% white text can you e%plain who my non-nepeta counterpart was supposed to be?  
hiZ name iZ equiuZ and he ZweatZ a lot.  
i like to think of him aZ my kinda-weird role model! he'Z really cool!  
CT: :% and also...  
CT: :% just kind of tell me what to do with my life?  
oh. that'Z what i call "deep."  
normally i wouldn't like getting into that, but i know i have a limited number of converZationZ left.  
Zo i gueZZ from here on out i can make exceptionZ from here on out.  
CT: :% sad  
CT: :% nevermind i feel kinda guilty ameowt this  
...no i'll do it anyway  
um... after the game...  
...lemme tell you right now that you'll Zurvive.  
...i already know your Zort-of future, juZt bitZ and pieceZ of it.  
juZt whatever you do, don't do it becauZe "you were deZtined to" and it waZ a "Ztable time loop."  
do it becauZe that'Z like your heart?  
i don't know. philoZophy waZ never my thing.  
try aZking Zalty'Z doomed-timeline  
Zprite. he'Z like me but with more...  
ZHAZAM!  
anyway.  
Zix converZationZ left.

The chat window closed itself. Just when Indigo stepped in, being curiously joined by Rust at the same time.

Rust wordlessly waved at her, and the pair got seated down. Fuchsia was looking at both of them with a raised eyebrow.

"Of all people..."

Then Colbalt followed, Jade-the-Harley shortly behind her. Fuchsia spoke up yet again.

" _OH, OF ALL PEOPLE!_ "

"Hey! This was your idea! You said I could join in!" She replied.

"No, Jade - the _real_ Jade - said you could! I kind of dosed off just before you posted in that not-memo trap thing. Fuck off."

"Ugh! Don't you want as many people as possible to try to stop Lime from turning us into her puppets?"

"Not if it means adding you disgusting animals. And by 'you' I don't mean 'humans,' I mean you dumb fancy 'researchers' that get credit from making stupid observations. Are you strong? Huh, huh? Survivial of the **fittest** , not the nerdiest? Can you beat me in an arm-wrestling match?"

"I _could_ , but I don't want to touch you."

"I'm probably cleaner than you, you fertilizer fucker."

Letting out a groan, Jade turned over to the other present Ones and just asked:

"Why does she hate me? Like, specifically? What did I do that-"

"Not all Nepetas think alike!" Said Bronze, having already apparently slapped herself in the forehead with no-one noticing. "We can't read each other's minds. Sometimes Fuchsia just likes making enemies. It's god-awful, I know, but Lime seems like the only person who can scare her out of it and there's no way she's going to make _anyone_ more pleasant. Because to her, it's 'boring.' The Ones can be so mean like that."

"Mrpphrhh fmph hmp!" Said Rust.

"That's true, but Cobalt been in Fuchsia's head before. And hates that place."

Jade paused for a moment, then re-directed herself at the offender. "Fuchsia! If we're really going to try to outsmart and beat Lime we should do it in numbers-"

"A million times nothing is still nothing." She withdrew her golden claws after saying this. "You're not gonna actually add anything to our plan."

"You already have a plan?"

"I can make more without you than I could make plans with you."

"...So you don't have a plan. That could be where I-"

Fuchsia immediately lept from her seat, drawing a bare foot only centimeters away from Jade's, glistening golden claws right by the side of her dress.

"Do you _WANT_ me to rip out your insides? Then _GET OUT!_ Stop trying to outsmart me! Stop trying to pretend you know _ANYTHING!_ You obsessive, stalker, serial-murdering _CULTISTS!_ "

"...Cultist?"

She didn't even fully see what happened next. In a blur, it first appeared like Fuchsia's left arm went back up closer to her own face. Jade didn't register that what Fuchsia really did was a fast attack until she felt a sudden pain by her gut. And after stepping back to put a hand over it, Jade noticed a triad of scratches towards the middle of her dress. She felt her hand get stained with the blood it drew before noticing exactly how nasty the gash was. Rust, Bronze, and Gold rushed up to start holding her back, but stopped when Indigo stepped in to single-handedly (literally) do a better job at keeping her away from the one human. The whole time, Cobalt kept sitting there with her hands clasped over mouth in shock,

"I'm not bluffing! Get out! We already have a Space player, we don't need you! We don't need _ANY_ of you! We were supposed to be gods... and then... then..."

"Fine!" Jade shouted back, heading over to the nearby gray gate. "You just lost four allies!"

"Just one! The rest of your friends are smart enough to know not to fuck with me!"

Not responding, she flew away. Literally one second later, Violet walked in swaying her hands to the side and humming a cheerful tune to herself.

"Hi guys!" She cheered, "Did I miss anything?"

"Oh, Fuchsia threatened to kill Salty and scratched her in the gut." Bronze explained, appearing to take a deck of cards out of her Sylladex. Rust perked up at this action, re-seating herself so that she and Bronze faced one-another on the exceptionally large sofa.

"So Fuchsia did the exact same thing she always does to non-Ones? Except you guys were here so she only scratched the person instead?"

"Yep. Also while I do have a partial-plan, Fuchsia has no plan. We just learned that." Bronze had since slid the cards out in a row face-down and whipped up what looked like a purple-colored steak, placing the latter in between the two lowest bloods. Rust picked up select cards out of this set.

"No, I have a plan! I just... thought of it right now! Yeah..." Fuchsia said in her own defense. "Okay, we activate the Scratch a lot earlier than planned. I talked to Jake and he talked to Roxy, and from there I found out about this kind of special anti-psychic black stuff? We could use that to 'bind' Lime in here, so she can't teleport to whereverthefuck we go to escape from the Scratch! Wiping her out of existance! Perfect, isn't it?"

"And how are we supposed to get that 'black stuff?'" Bronze and Rust had now started dealing cards out to one-another, still keeping the steak in the middle.

"By- well... let's just say I know a guy."

"Are you gonna ask if we're cops before telling us more?"

"Dirk Strider! He and his co-player Jane both know about this stuff, since they live in a weirdified post-apocalyptic world. Both of their homes are guarded by it. It should really work!"

"...An apocalypse of what?"

"Whatever's causing it, apparently the black not-ink can drive them back and limit a troll's psychic powers."

"How do we handle it without losing _our_ psychic powers? I love purrsuading animals. I don't want that taken away."

"Use gloves and shit, you idiot."

"So we should trust Rust around most of this?"

"Yeah, sure, why not. Also she can telekinetic on stuff."

"Um, that's not the right use of the word." Cobalt cut in. "And how much does that anti-psychic work? If it negates psychic powers then maybe she wouldn't be able to carry it with, well, psychic powers!"

"Gah, wait for everyone else to get here!" Fuchsia stomped on the ground. "I just remembered! I'll have to explain everything _ALL OVER AGAIN_ each time a fucker shows up! So, from now on, my lips are sealed!"

"Heh! I wish."

"Mrph mmp hmm pfffh hrm?" Asked Rust.

"That's true too." Bronze replied with a giggle. "But I was talking about her _face_."

* * *

"Okay, okay!" Announced Fuchsia. " _Now_ we're all here!"

"I thought Salty was going to join us?" Purple said as she just barely stepped in.

"Well, she did, but I kicked her out. Forget about her. We need to go over the plan."

"It's an awesome plan, isn't it?" She said with hopeful eyes.

" _Of course it's awesome! I made it!_ "

"Then let me hear it!"

"We do the Scratch!"

"...That's exactly what we were already going to do."

"But wait, I'm not finished! We also use this stuff I'll get from a guy eventually to block off Lime from entering the new universe! She'll be wiped from existance and will no longer be able to spy on us!"

"...That... you just kind of took our plan in general, and added some vague stuff about something we didn't know existed before. Unless you were talking about black H.H.T. blood, or something. Sorry, I thought you could come up with something better- I mean, not in a _bad_ way!"

"Dirk! It's from Dirk! You know who Dirk is, right?"

"...Do you mean... Dave?"

"No!"

"...Damara?"

"N- wait, who?"

"Yeah, um... I think there's other trolls with a name that starts with a 'D' but I'm not sure... Damara is one of them! Someone I talked to in the one Dream Bubble!"

"The one what?"

"...This might take some explanation."

* * *

Lime herself was, at the time, enjoying a frolick around the dreamed up landscape that was this one Dream Bubble. While the multitude of Prospits and Derses making up the geography were a bit repetitive, it also helped landmarks stand out. Landmarks of individuality. Seperate Lands.

For example, a memory of LOQAM likely implied that Aradia was somewhere around there. LOPAH being a memory of Karkat's or Kankri's, LOTAM... those are the interesting ones.

"YOU!"

Oh. Look. One of the less interesting ones. Lime turned around to face her currently-only close company with a big grin.

"Hey, Karkat! I mean, the real one, not that terrible disguise Olive gave herself!" She leaned in and 'whispered' an additional, " _And don't tell her I called her disguise terrible!_ "

"Oh look, a lesson in manners from the abomination of a flying monster that somehow _successfully_ ran the Vantas line further through the ground, without my sickening blood color! I would tell you to get out of my sight, but to 'date' you have done the exact opposite of everything I say. So annoy me. Come on, give me some taunt. Tell me I'm going to double-die and there is nothing I can do about it! Yell to me about the future apocalypse in what's already a personal hell!"

Lime chuckled. "You know, I was already planning to leave you anyway. I'm not here to taunt anybody. I'm here to get some answers."

As she jumped away, she ended up leaving Karkat with but one question that could be applied to a lot of her own 'work:'

"...Did that really work- d-did she do that on purpose?"

* * *

"Aradiaaaaa!" Lime called out as she floated around the landscape of memories. "Aradiaaaaa?"

No response. Of course, when it comes to Lime, this tends to be the norm for just about anyone. Dead, alive. Partly-dead. Whatever.

"Aradiaaaaa! Don't make me have to hunt you down! You have absolutely _nothing to gain_ from _delaying the inevidableeeee!_ "

She felt something flick the back of her head. Lime began chuckling.

"Aradia, I know that was you. Only you would think that something as _stupid_ as that move could change anything. Sorry, but you're sticking to destiny, and you're sticking to it like glue! Don't worry, soon you'll learn to love the new cat overlord that will take over all of Paradox Space!"

And Lime said all of this without turning around. As a matter of fact...

"Hey, Aradia. Turn around. There's a few things I want to show you!"

"I refuse!"

"That's okay, because I can do it for you!"

An action unseen by Aradia - and soon, everyone in the Bubble for that matter - was her making a swirling motion with her hand. Just like that, the landscape began changing.

"I'm like some kind of dream monster. And since this place is shaped by dreams... well, I'm the god of it."

A very crude, ametaur sketch of Dave appeared before Aradia's ghost-eyes, looking as though it was something Nepeta would scribble as part of her shipping wall- oh.

"See this guy? I have big plans for this guy. Now, I want you to follow this to the letter, okay?"

* * *

"You guys already pulled off the Scratch?" Asked John, directed over at the pair that was Dave and Rose.

And those three were hardly the only ones standing on a meteor at the moment. The Jade all three of them were more familiar with, for one, was also standing there. Now wearing a different shirt - the whopping change of having a blue ghost worm instead of the atom she previously had - still clutching her mid-section while swearing under her breath.

And, of course, nine Nepetas were there, and I probably don't need to say that the exceptions were Lime, Olive, and Fuchsia.

"Olive better be here soon," Jade-the-human said, "Because I don't really like the idea of blowing ourselves up."

"Mrrphimp trr rrlfft?" Said Rust.

"What?"

"I think she said something about facing your own death." Dave explained. "I'd say that was because that's more of a Time thing to get familiar with than a Space thing, but we're clearly not playing by Sburb's rules anymore."

"Heh," Bronze huffed. "Sorry Dave. Talking to her over Pesterchum is kind of different from getting to listen to her for sweeps."

"Hey, I _did_ get past her accent at least. It's the scarf that's still killing me."

Using (what else but?) her jetpack, Olive finally dropped into the setting. She sighed.

"Well. Lime and Fuchsia are still MIA. I would go looking for them, but one of them is a teleporter and the other one is hunting a teleporter..."

"But... this game has teleporters." Bronze said, guesturing to a transportalizer on the very platform.

"They're limited. Lime can go _anywhere_."

"Do we really need either of them for completing the game after the Scratch?" Asked Jade, rubbing the spot she got scratched on to prove her point. She didn't realize at first that this was throwing on a little play on words as well, and a rather cringe-y one at that.

"I honestly don't know! Maybe? The post-Scratch session already has a hero of Life if Lime's 'resources' are accurate. And about Lime herself... I don't really know about Blood... at all. I think Space and Time are really important, and we have two of each of those."

This was when everyone's computers began going off at once, instantly opening up Pesterchum or Trollian.

\- catGirl [CG] began trolling acetoneAlleycat [AA] -  
\- acetoneAlleycat [AA] was forcibly locked into the conversation! -  
\- adorablenessTerminal was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- twinAwesomepaws [TA] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- arsenicCatnip [AC] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- gargantuanAether [GA] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- gnawingCatwoodsmonster [GC] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- adorabloodthirstyGrip [AG] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- calicosTail [CT] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- tabbyCute [TC] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- chromophilicAquarium [CA] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- ectoBiologist [EB] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- gardenGnostic [GG] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- tentacleTherapist [TT] was forced to join the conversation! -  
\- turntechGodhead [TG] was forced to join the conversation! -  
CG: :5 hey  
CG: :5 5o uh  
CG: :5 fuck fuch5ia  
CG: :5 no, really!  
CG: :5 anyway you guy5 can ju5t move on and get everything into the next 5e55ion already  
CG: :5 dont worry about fuch5ia and i  
CG: :5 well be fine and well 5ee you in b2  
CG: :5 until then, i hope you enjoy three hour5 without dealing with my me-ne55 and fuch5ia'5 bitchyne55!  
AC: :33 where are you?  
\- catGirl [CG] forcibly ended the chat! -

"So I guess that settles it." Said Olive, going over the list of everyone Lime drafted to make sure nobody was left out, aside from Lime's aformentioned chaser. "We're leaving now. Jade, do you have the planets? We need to send as much Grist as we can get from as many sources as we have."

It was Jade the Nepeta that replied, nodding her head and showing the entire group the filled cards.

"And the Battlefield? Lime said there was something wrong with the one in the new session..."

Another nod, showing them one more card. Predictably, it showed a checkerboard planet.

"So... let's set off the bomb and travel through a dangerous veil piece."

* * *

The Furthest Ring. Region of unspeakable horror. Place where all dreams end. The center of the mind. And, currently, the setting of a rather annoying chase between two alien catgirls.

Lime laughed as she used her own natural flight powers to evade Fuchsia's jetpack. She was going to run out of fuel. That was calculated to the point where it was a given. And from there, Lime would have to act as the heroine. Fuchsia would not know any of this - acting directly according to a script. The only part of the story that remained unknown to Lime was Fuchsia's direct reaction towards how this would happen.

Of course, the royal-blooded Nepeta was not silent during the chase. Quite the opposite. As her exceptionally long claws occasionally swiped at the void ahead of her (despite never being within reasonable range of her target in the first place), she threw on a new, colorful swear at her chartreuse hitlist member. Just to be defected by Lime proudly singing:

" _You're going to miss me, just always within reach! You couldn't even kiss me, these words are what I shall teach!_ "

What worked out pretty well with this was how Lime herself was not going to get sick from doing this for the whole three hour trip, while Fuchsia was already sick. Ah, the beauty of trolling... like, actual trolling. As those humans used to define it.

Ah again, passing by the Dream Bubble. As tempting as it was to pass by for another time... Lime already did that enough for one night. It's time to just move on. Which is exactly what the two of them were doing literally, but not what either of them were doing mentally despite insisting otherwise.

She still playfully skimmed a hand across the surface. After all, it was necessary to pass this surface in order to reach the new Lands. Might as well... see if Fuchsia...

Wait what the fuck why is Feferi there, grinning up at her, and why is Fuchsia looking back down to her ghost. For what felt like the first time in her life, Lime absolutely scowled.

"Hey. Fuchsia. Don't let that other royal distract you. Fuchsia. I'm still over here, hateable as ever! Fuchsia. Fuchsia?"

* * *

This was all unseen by the group that was riding this out via meteor. To 'compensate,' (as though they knew or even cared) however, they got a decent view of the Green Sun.

"Propelling us through the outer extremities of existance through an explosion is clearly more of a science, than an art." Rose said, walking through the central room. Currently, all ten of the Nepetas from before were placed there, as well as Jade and Dave. "I would like the speak to the exact troll who got the idea."

"Um... I think that's Gold, but I still don't really know about my other selves..."

"Yeah, I did." Gold spoke up, giving Rose a wave. "I'm over here. I also figured some things out."

Shrugging, Rose chose to go over to the aformentioned yellower instance of Nepeta.

"The mechanics behind our propulsion-"

"Oh yeah. I knew you were gonna ask me about that. You see... I wasn't _alone_ with that... Lime had to kind of help me talk to some people who were good at timing and mechanics to help me out, and pin-point where the bomb should go. I had to use a diagram from one of them. Well, actually, one of them drew a diagram, then another one had to interpret the diagram and re-draw it because it wasn't clear."

"And how do I speak to these 'people?' Are they Carapaces? Dwellers of the post-mortem world that lies out here?"

"The second one. They're these ghosts."

"Any tips on making contact with them feasible?"

"Oh! I almost forgot. You should use this black blood-stuff before you sleep if you want to aim yourself into the Bubble."

"None of you told me that your alien kind has a black-blooded variety."

"We uh, don't. It's actually from some kind of trial monster thingy... or at least, it should be. I could never understand it. Fuchsia and Indigo might though, ask them. And I think Purple seems to know about using that stuff, but I can't tell for sure, she's really not straightforeward about it."

"Did somebody say me?" Asked Indigo, with a laugh. "I mean, I'm almost the only option since Fuchsia's..."

"A bitch." Bronze cut in.

"Yeah... except she... no, yeah. Luckily, that's only for asking about where the black blood came from. I know two people who have a _huge_ supply of it! There's just one down side..."

"Yes?"

"They're both in the post-Scratch session so... we still can't really do anything but wait. Unless you want to have freaky dreams."

"Given the option of nightmares I usually pass, despite the potential benefits they may raise in the form of growing from evaluating them or realizing what there truly is or isn't to fear about."

"Huh? Oh, no. There's something psychic out there that just likes messing with your head. That's all. Also, uh John told me about your psycho-analyze trends and I _really_ don't think you can outsmart whatever's out there."

"I could spend a portion of the three hours making that a challenge."

"No. Just don't. You'll end up like your kind of descendant ancestor that we're about to reach."

"'Kind of descendant ancestor?'"

"Oh. Right... I guess I never told you _how_ the Scratch changes the universe? Or what a 'rip' even is? Yeah, the two big important things about the new timeline. A Scratch and a Rip. Which one do you want me to start with?"

"I suspect that the 'Rip' is more mysterious. Becides, we just spent the past hours discussing a Scratch."

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

I don't really have much to say about this chapter, or even this story in general right now (that isn't related to spoilers). So I'll talk about its sister-fic _run:gifocalypse_ instead. I plan to finish the rough draft of chapter six today, and to have the final version ready and published by 6/16. No, just because I broke my 'update per month' plan in May doesn't mean that it's dead without any word on it - that was kind of more of an average rate goal, anyway, and less of a 'literally one update every month.' That might get two chapters either on June (if I finish chapter seven in time) or July (this one is more likely; expect chapters seven and eight on that month, with nine being pretty close to finished by July's end as well) to make up for it.

Well... I will say something about this, but not related to the storyline. It's going on hiatus yet again, and frankly this one will be rather long. My plan is that after finishing the draft version of RunGif's sixth chapter, I'll start on number eight, and then work on _three_ chapters at once until either finishing the rough of seven or the final of six, whichever comes first. Once that's finished, I'll add the fourth and final chapter of _The Simpsons Meet Brandy and Mr. Whiskers_ (I feel like renaming that to add the "the," just so it'll be less like the story name when I was about eight and more like it's actually grammatically correct) to my fic priorities, just to get that out of the way. _Then_ might be _Movie Day_ , at least chapter two but _maybe_ three. (To anyone who looked at my other stories: That's right! _Movie Day_ isn't dead!) Following that, maybe chapter ten of _Total Zeksmit Plains_ , since I promised to push myself to finishing that little corner of a fic I wrote myself into. **Then** I'll get back to this. Keep in mind that, going by my weird concept of "priority slots," this and getting another chapter of _gifocalypse_ closer to completion will free one "slot." By the time I reach chapter ten, I won't want to work on two/three chapters at once anymore due to the story getting a little more complex at that point... freeing up another "slot." From there, we'll see how things go.

To summarize, when it comes to my fics that are not intentionally poorly written (if you hate those, don't worry: I'm ending the whole thing pretty soon with _Housestuck: The Split_ ), the order of updates you should expect from after this moment is: _run:gifocalypse_ , _(The) Simpsons Meet Brandy and Mr. Whiskers_ , _Movie Day_ , and either _Total Zeksmit Plains_ followed by this leaving its hiatus or I just put TZP on further hold and resume this again. I might elaborate more on a Tumblr post at great-pikmin-fan on the thirteenth, since I'm kind of posting every thirteenth from April to September because of something related to _Housestuck: The Split_.


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